*This is a previously unposted blog entry from our trip. I guess it got lost in the shuffle, but I thought I would post it.*
Gratitude. Fictions. Questions. Discovery. Uncovered.
The more I am away, the more it is revealed to me that all the bunglings and bumps of navigating this unfamiliar world are, in fact, quite familiar. Those "new aspects of myself" I now see emerging in the throws of travel, actually turn out to be rather long standing patterns and ways of being, rusted and worn from years of habitual and often mindless use. Born of reinforcement, in other places with other people, for reasons I am more and more inclined to question.
At some point I think I got it into my head that upon stepping into the unstructured, the unknown, the undiscovered, I would blossom into some wild and expansive version of myself. I guess that waiting until I was 32 to take "the big trip" gave me plenty of time to craft some pretty amorphous and tantalizing visions - not founded in much reality I had any direct experience with.
Akin to the meditation retreat fantasies I have been prone to - of being a wise wispy floating emodiement of peace (no loud laughing boisterous red heads allowed!) - I managed to vision myself as being a traveller who was at ease in any situation, making easy friends with all, speaking all languages effortlessly of course.
Well, it turns out that I am still myself.
The fact that I am surprised is part of the puzzle...
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