trials and tribulations

in an email to one of my closest friends from college this morning i get asked if this is a "quiting the world and finding yourself" sort of thing? I don't think that it is fully that. I don't plan to "find myself" on this journey.  I do view it as an escape of sorts. and i sort of feel that it then becomes a cop out.

i love traveling. i love the freedom that it brings. seeing new places and cultures. meeting new people. having unexpected unforeseeable things pop up and dealing with them however is needed (even when sometimes it is incredibly uncomfortable and near miserable). It is a form of life that the daily routine doesn't offer.  Each day is something entirely new, never knowing where tomorrow will really bring you.

Now maybe I'm just a bit romantic at heart.  But I don't see my trip as a finding myself sort of thing. I think yoga school helped more with that.  though I do feel somewhat lost on that front, i accept that I think most people do as well and thus it is the norm. I don't see it as a finding, but more so of a losing in some ways.  a losing of what has not allowed me to progress forward more in the ways i'd like to in these last few years. a stripping down of all that I don't need or want from my current life so that when i come back i can have a modified fresh Andy.  So it's an escape, sort of, but not to necessarily find myself.

more so to the point, and what somewhat matters to me the most, it's something that i've wanted to do for almost 5 years. In many other 1st world countries, travel is a regular part of the culture.  how many Aussies did i meet that were traveling for months or years on end.  same with europeans.  it is something that is part of their culture, that for some reason the US does not have. So I've been saving with every paycheck. talking with people who have done similar things and doing moderate research.this is a journey that has been calling to me for 1/6 of my life and it just feels time to answer that call.

The future is scary for it is unknown and entirely "new" to me.  But I trust  and believe deeply that things will be just fine. and when and where this is a will, there is a way.