Traveling

So I find myself in this crazy time of transition again. I think that things are relatively stable in respect to work and home (or what I call home, the locale of my apt staying in the same zipcode and work, as staying in the same job/mission for a second year). But, the relationships that I have grown accustomed to are changing and shifting in major ways that I have absolutely no power to effect or stop. The simple fact that this happens recurrently each spring makes my otherwise wonderful life an exercise in the art of saying goodbye or "see ya later." This I hate about springtime in the city.


At the end of July, I will have bid a solemn farewell to five of my dearest friends, who have supported and loved me these last seven years in the city. I am at a lost for what to do to stem this tide of loneliness and grief. Friends can never be replaced. Each one so very different and specially created to be in my life shaping my world for a time. So I find myself awakening to a wanderlust kinda restlessness--hopefully channelling my emotional cloudiness to something more just over the horizon. Something to plan. I detest this feeling of being left behind. I would much rather trailblaze or pioneer in the wilderness of what's next. Well, in reality I think I'm just in my own defensive mode of dealing with change. If I am called to live in a city where my community must change each year, then I will make the most of being free to do whatever I want. And right now I want to travel anywhere away from here.

Traveling has a sort of calming effect of me. Somewhere between the last minute packing frenze and the hesitancy of leaving home for something new, there is a calming reassurance that everything is better while on the road. Any seasoned traveler would probably disagree, and I do in the end too, but the hope that belies this thought is none other than the hope that tomorrow will be better than today. Maybe tomorrow will hold a new friend to replace the holes in my circle of friends. Maybe it will present some shinning opportunity to love. Maybe it will be the day when all is made right. Maybe wonder will return to this dark world as a brilliant contagious blaze. Or maybe it will be just another day to live under the mercy and grace of God, who wills that this should be just the way this day was designed to be.

Still I like the freshness of a new day. I like the adventure of traveling with its new tastes and smells, places and people, promise of new memories and stories to share. I like that traveling helps me to appreciate the stability of home. Wherever home might be for this time in my life, traveling is an ever present cure for certain types of discontent since discontent cannot share space with wonder, at least not in my imagination.