Home Is Wherever I'm With You

So. On the road again.

It seems like it has been increasingly difficult for me to ever stay in one place these past few years...a few months here, a few months there. I almost thought for a while that I would want to just stay in one place because I am SO tired of moving every 6 months. But am I? Good question.

Part of me fully believes that I could be ready to settle somewhere (at least for a few years), and the other part (the part that usually wins out in a discussion with myself...) lights the fire that cannot be put out, and spreads itself to every cell saying, why not try...Austria! Germany! India! Argentina! Greece! Egypt! Thailand! I want to go as many places as possible while I still can, experience life through my own eyes and not anybody else's.

I may be ready to come home after my year in Austria...I may be ready to keep going. No one knows. Growing up to be an adult doesn't scare me. Paying bills doesn't scare me. What scares me is knowing that I might not use my second chance in life to do things that make me happy, and to actually live and experience the world while I still exist.

So what makes me happy, really, about traveling? Is it the different bed every night, change in scenery, or cultural learning? Or is it the fact that I find solace in never putting my roots down anywhere because I don't have to take responsibility for myself? I couldn't tell you just one reason, I think that these reasons are all true. The fact of the matter is, that I am happier being transient than settled. I don't even remember what it is like to be settled, or for that matter, if I ever have been. My life has been surrounded around escaping/never being in 1 place all the time. I started this trend at age 11 when we moved an hour and a half away from my Dad, and I would go up on weekends to visit. Weekends became my escape from issues at school, home life, friends, and I learned from this that I could very easily leave issues behind to take a second for a breath of fresh air and a new perspective. Did it ever solve any of my problems? No. Did it ever make my problems disappear? Hardly. Did it give me a chance to take a physical if not emotional step back from myself and everyone around me? Absolutely.

I am looking at this year as another chance to find parts of myself that will make me more ready to settle, and to take an emotional step forward instead of back. In the past year I've faced some hard lessons. Harder lessons than I ever could've imagined I would have to deal with at 21, and now extending into being 22. I haven't dealt with everything, and of course, that is the whole POINT of living, is learning to deal with yourself and your experiences. I'd probably be dead if I'd solved everything by this point. But the one lesson that I really did learn last fall while I was sitting at home alone, balding, aching, terrified and feeling bad for myself is that none of these feelings are really bad (difficult yes, but bad no), and to learn to be alone is not a bad thing either. I've learned to trust myself enough to know that I can do things alone, that I am okay with being with myself instead of with others all the time, as I used to be. I don't need to escape myself anymore, but must face my fears instead.

And that is the real reason I am going to Austria. To face myself once again. To go back to the place where the past difficult year started, and to end it this time with joy instead of fear. Nothing is ever simple or easy, and I know that I do not face my fears all the time, but I think I am ready to start again. This is a new chance to take the lessons I've learned and apply them.

Not to mention that I have fabulous friends in Europe who I definitely plan on visiting. France, England, Poland, Belgium, Greece, Hungary, Czech Republic, Romania...if I've got any funds left over from my ridiculously expensive apartment, I sure hope to go to all of these places so see some of my favorite people in the whole world!

Until next post, keep an open mind and an open heart. I'll try to do the same.