When I was a teen, I dreamed of being that girl. But in a, "I don't know how to become that girl, and it won't ever happen, but I want be that independent, that ready for whatever adventure finds its way to me, and ready to go looking for one," kind of way. I never pictured what the adventure would be. I never had an idea of what I wanted to do or where I wanted to go. (Other than Australia, I knew I wanted to go to Australia.) I just wanted to believe I was that independent and that ready for adventure. Because it's exactly who I wasn't as a teenager. I was a rule-following, Catholic schools hadn't pushed me over the edge yet, Daddy's girl who only knew how to do what was expected of me. And running off on an adventure didn't qualify.
As an adult, I'm still a rule-following, generally sedentary, non-adventure seeking "mom." I just am. And it works for me. I worry about where the next paycheck comes from. I like order, knowing the plan, having to-do lists. I make sure the house is (somewhat) clean, I put the child's needs before mine, and the only places I dream about visiting are the places where we have family - places I call Home.
But when I read this.... when I read this description of someone that I would never think of as Me.... I felt like maybe I haven't been giving myself enough credit. Maybe I am "a girl who travels." Not just because I'm here in Tokyo, 11,000km from home, and am starting to get quite the collection of stamps in my passport. Not because I'm living in our fifth "home" in a year, trying to figure out how to say basic phrases in my fourth language in that time.
And I don't jump at every chance to add a new stamp to the passport, or every sale on plane tickets. I can't just show up somewhere not knowing what job I'll get or where I'll live. I'm not "the girl who travels" in that sense AT ALL.
I do have some similarities with that girl, though. And that's what knocked the breath out of me when I was reading it. I started reading it, thinking I'd be laughing, or at least giggling a bit, as it described some of the odder people I've met in the past few years. But that isn't what it was, and it isn't what I felt.
It isn't about being a girl who "travels" as much as it is being a girl who recognizes the vastness and greatness of the world and seeks to be part of it, to experience it, to live within it - not trapped in one place, one job, one routine. Someone who yearns to know more - who the people are, how the place or traditions came to be, how to improve life for the people everywhere. A girl who won't settle for status quo. A girl who knows that what's "normal" here isn't what's "normal" somewhere else - and wants to see what someone else is taking for granted to add it to the list of of things she never knew about before. A girl who seeks life, knowledge, and wonder.
That's the girl I am. And it's why I love what we're doing now, traveling and experiencing so many places. And it's why I'm feeling lost and trapped at the same time. I'm not taking the time to learn the things I want to learn. I'm not reflecting on what I'm seeing, I'm not incorporating it into my definition of "self" nearly as much as I should be. Which leaves me feeling as disconnected from my world as I would if I were in one city, in one job, in one routine - without any of the comfort that comes from that routine. I need to remember to be "the girl who travels" a bit more. Be part of the adventure. Don't let the adventure be over before I've noticed it was happening.
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