3 Months On

I recently did an interview for someone awesome. It was for a uni assignment about the concept of home. 

She’s an Arts major… be kind.

Anyway it reminded me of this time when I was a kid.

I had just turned six and we’d not so long ago moved from Bali back to Perth. I think it was particularly hard for me at the time but I don’t remember why. I just remember I wasn’t really adjusting.

I would just keep threatening to run away from home in "classic Blinky Bill" style.

I know now that it probably really hurt my mum but she managed to put an end to it pretty quickly. I think it must have been the third or fourth day that a head strong, six year old me, swore I was leaving.

So she very casually lent down, looked me in the eyes and said, “I’m sorry you don’t feel happy here. I love you, I’ll always love you and you’ll always have a home here but you should find somewhere that makes you happy and a family that can do that for you.”

Then she walked me to the front door, shoved me outside and closed it behind me.

I didn’t even make it past the letterbox before I burst into tears and was begging to come home.

I remember she opened the door and just laughed, smiled and welcomed me back.

I never threatened to run away again. Well at least before this trip anyway.

I’ve been gone for almost three months now.
Yeah, I know. It feels like FOREVER ago that I left that tiny Perth airport. 

Although I’ve tried, how can I even begin to explain to you all the things that have happened to me in that time.

All the people I’ve met, everything I’ve experienced and all the things that still lie ahead of me. I can’t accurately summarize it.

How can I possibly explain how it feels to see the Grand Canyon with your own eyes? Or to stand on the top of the Empire State Building or to ride past a pirate ship in San Diego or run through crowds in Mexico City or to see Vegas rise up out of the desert?

Some days I look at my backpack and wish I'd left all of it behind because all it does is slow me down when I’m trying to run for the bus or train or plane. When I was packing, I couldn't bare the thought of leaving any of it behind. 

It was the feeling I got, when I found a clearing in the shrubbery that surrounds the canyon and stood on the edge of that cliff. When my legs trembled ever so slightly and my lungs stung, it making it hard to breath at that altitude.

When you see that Canyon stretch out in front of you for miles and miles and feel that warm desert breeze on your face.

It's THAT feeling that makes you never want to care about Facebook or your smart phone or the balance of your bank account because none of it is a measure of who you are.

You've been gifted this opportunity to feel your heart pounding in your chest and adrenaline coursing through your veins.

I understand all too well what Christopher McCandless meant when he wrote “you are wrong if you think happiness radiates only from interpersonal relationships. God has placed it all around us. It is in everything and anything we might experience.
We just have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living.”

That's why I travel. That's the reason why I left, because I let myself become too concerned with others and all the bullshit you fill your life with. 

Because there's nothing like looking in a rear view mirror and watching the city slowly disappear.

Even though I’m excited for the day that I eventually do come home and to show off the new person I’ve become, I’ve still got so far to go. 

For now I've got nothing to do but to turn up The Shins on my iPod and board that next anything to take me somewhere.