It’s the Easter weekend in the UK and probably many other places also and as the sun starts to come out, I find myself hankering to leave our shores and wander once again nomadically around our world.
I’ve been chatting to my husband Vinnie recently, working out what it is about travelling, as opposed to going on holiday that I like and desire and would want in my life on a semi-permanent basis and of course it brings me back to that one word – FREEDOM.
Travelling provides me with the freedom to move on, quickly and easily. It offers my mind the stimulation of somewhere and something new. Immediately there are new smells and feelings and I believe that no matter how our country tells us to analytically look at things from a logical point of view, we were brought into the world as feeling beings and this aspect of our nature should not and never be ignored.
This is what comes to the forefront in travel, consistently developing trust in yourself as you step out into the world. No wonder so many young adults want to travel – why would you not want to experience this after (in this day and age) a possible 20 years in some form of educative experience of institutional schooling and care.
Yet I also have children and they, even though they are 18 and 20, they are my priority – I need to provide security and safety for them as they explore the world in their way.
So it seems my mind and my soul play a push/pull game at the moment. As I push for my freedom as an individual, but pull towards the security of providing a family home until my children are ready to leave me and their father completely, as they enter their own lives more fully. I am in a period of flux and I find it bloody uncomfortable at times and triggers emotional discomforts born from long ago.
My initial attempt at providing freedom for all of us, stumbled at the last hurdle. Although if I had not have stumbled, I wonder if I would be where I am now or would I have just arrived here in a different way. I question is this anything at all to do with travel or is it all to do with being human and they way lives twist and turn as they progress and we grow older. The only certain death I now know to be true in life, is stagnation.
Stagnation to me is sitting in the same job for 40 years, waiting for my pension to kick in so that as an old person I can live a comfortable life. It does not mean that I am not scared at stepping out of the norm. That I too don’t hanker for ease of life when I am old but am I now willing to compromise the chance of freedom and the colourful joy of living along the way – no. There are days when it terrifies me and I question my decision and choices – there are moments when I realise the support of my husband, daughter and son is the only support I have. I recognise my luck in that and yet there are moments when I feel very alone.
I am an adult orphan – there are no parents alive above me, no place for me to turn and no one looking out for me. Whilst this offers me freedom on a completely different level, it also means I have lost my safe place to run to. So each step I take, I have to take in faith but this is not a strong and sturdy faith but a small and shaky one born out of remaining steady for so long,
I much prefer to be moving forward in life – so why do we have to come back, when we are traveling. Love takes me away and brings me home.
What brings you back?
I’d love to know your thoughts…
Travel with the Strings 