It’s the day before. I’ve already left home, said goodbye to my daughter and parents. But I’m not yet on the road. It’s an odd place as I’m used to saying goodbye and then boom….off to the airport or the freeway or the train station for points beyond. It’s got me all jumpy, excited, packed full of energy that seems to have no outlet. In a bit I’ll try to temper the nervous tapping of my foot with a trip to the climbing gym. But for now I fidget.
It’s not the worse thing in the world, waiting for a road trip to begin. The bags are all packed in the minivan, the list has been checked more than twice and there’s nothing more to fix or do or run down or buy. I can just let the day unfold as planned.
And yet, I’m still jumpy. Why?
I think it’s the anticipation of being on the road again. Here I use the term road literally but half the time it is figurative, a space holder for a flight, train ride or boat either to a destination or through it. It’s movement and that is the base of what I enjoy most about travel. The sheer joy of movement. I’m not sure where that feeling came from…..maybe my Mom never stopped chasing after my two brothers before I was born. Maybe I have a mixed up equilibrium that can only be sated with constant motion. Wherever it came from, it’s there, a love of motion and travel.
It’s not that I can’t sit still. I can and do so every day just staring at a wall, meditating. I know how to sit still. But when a trip is within grasp something in me gets ampped up with the anticipation of movement ahead. Of seeing new sites. Meeting new friends. Exploring. I love input at this simplistic, new level and travel hands that to me in bucket fulls. A fresh, clean slate, soon to be splashed with the color and grime of a 2500 mile road trip followed by thousands of flight miles.
I don’t think getting there is half the adventure as the old adage goes. For me, getting there is so much more. It’s realizing there is constantly here and life doesn’t get better when you get ‘there’. Being happy with being here makes the movement aspect of travel so much more of an exciting aspect of the journey.
And I sit here, now, getting excited for the movement to start tomorrow. Realizing my journey has never ended. A nice reminder and how I hope to keep living life. Everyday is the adventure we wait for, but sometimes fail to see.
And just like that, it’s no longer the day before.
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