Yesterday I had a lot of energy to burn, so rather than hang around the apartment, I took my bike out for a long ride. It was nothing I bothered to plan, but ended up being a great route, complete with beautiful views and challenging hills.
Afternoons like that get me to thinking I could probably spend my whole life exploring the world on a bike.
And maybe that's exactly what I'll do.
In just a few days, we'll be moving out of our lovely sublet here in San Francisco to kick off a summer of travel. Saturday we fly to Cancún to attend my sister's wedding. The following week we'll spend in Texas visiting family. And the latter half of the month will be spent making preparations for an extended bicycle trip scheduled to begin May 31st.
At least, that's when our flight is set to arrive in Finland.
I'm so excited to be heading back to Estonia to visit all of the wonderful friends I made while teaching English there two years ago.
Since first moving out of my parents' house at age 17, I have believed myself to be somewhat of a gypsy traveler. Now, ten years and more than 20 countries later, it's still not looking like a phase I'll be growing out of any time soon.
But something in me finally feels different.
A new inner sense of freedom which was previously lacking.
It's a perspective that manages to shift the whole psychological and spiritual dynamic of travel.
No longer driven by a feeling of lack, but by a feeling of fulfillment.
There is nothing to escape from. Nothing to seek. I am not answering a calling to "find myself."
And getting to this point did not require any kind of miraculous discovery or painstaking assembly of all the right pieces.
And getting to this point did not require any kind of miraculous discovery or painstaking assembly of all the right pieces.
It simply meant a sloughing off of all those stale, oppressive layers of who I thought I was or needed to be.
(Which is an ongoing process, really.)
Onward, ho!
