In 30 years of living, it seems like there should be lots of significant moments that identify me - graduating college, getting married, various career milestones, being published, but there’s actually one year of my life where none (okay, most - sorry husband) of those things don’t compare.
I spent a year living in a constant state of motion with my partner. We were together 24/7 for an entire year give or take a few hours (okay give 3 hours to be exact). We had an endless amount of adventures, met amazing humans, and recalibrated our daily rhythm to a more natural cycle. It was pure bliss. Living out of a tent while traveling across the United States might not be everyone’s ideal situation but for me, it’s become the measuring stick of my life. How can sitting at a desk, inside, without a window to open, removed from my partner, nature, and adventure for eight hours a day be “normal”?
We relish the few times a year we’re fortunate enough to spend traveling but - life is still happening in the space between the trips that recalibrate our soul. The few weeks of slow down, crushed between 50 weeks of chaos.
Despite being off the road for 4 years now, some days it’s still so hard to reintegrate into a regular routine. Waking up in the morning and instantly knowing where I am was novel for a few months, but quickly turned boring. While I enjoy hot showers at leisure in my own home, rarely do I do anything during the day worthy of earning that shower. And I certainly don’t appreciate running water the same way I did when I was camped out in southern Arizona, covered in a layer of dust, and dreaming of a chance to shower with something other than melted ice from the cooler.
My skin craves change, newness, uncertainty. Perhaps in my last life, I was a nomad. Perhaps I'm meant to be in this life. I look around the home I’ve spent countless hours curating, improving, cleaning, and designing. I feel love, happiness, and gratitude at the myriad of reminders of a life well-lived so far. And while this collection of memories serves as an inspiring memento, it doesn’t substitute actual living.
Clocking in feels itchy and my daily lunch break separates morning monotony from afternoon monotony. An early evening microadventure to a local park with my love and pup serves as a quick nature-fix that doesn’t do nearly enough. I’m homesick, not for a place, but for all the places.
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