Traveling is piercing white sheets and pillows so soft that you think about stealing them. Traveling is saying “Good morning!” to strangers and making temporary friends after asking where they are from. It is clear waters and pink sand. It is mountains and gazing at a skyline that is different from home. Traveling is waking up early to conquer what the world has to offer that day and going to bed with heavy eyelids. It is hoping that your flight home gets canceled allowing you to stay a few extra days because the thought of reality is crippling.
The view from the plane makes you feel tiny, like your body takes up no space at all. You pass through the clouds wanting to touch them or taste them but you can’t do either. You watch people live their lives from a birds-eye view and wonder where each car is going. You think to yourself, how long have these flight attendants been awake and where are they headed to next? You think to yourself, If this turbulence starts getting out of hand and we fall from the sky, where the heck would I land? You realize that you are a floating body thousands of feet off the ground. It is frightening, panicking, disturbing. It is riveting, mesmerizing, fascinating. It is something you’d rather not think about so you put in your headphones and press “play."
Traveling is stepping away from dirty dishes and laundry and for a moment, being able to experience what it’s like to run away and never come back. Feels great, right? Feels expensive and luxurious. It feels like a consistent flow of energy and room service. It feels like forgetting about your ex-boyfriend and remembering to call your parents. It feels like your only responsibility is to reinvent yourself, drink a glass of wine, and murmur, “My life is fine. Living like this, my life is fine.”
So maybe, when it’s time to make the bed and turn in the room key, you can take a piece of traveling with you. You can go back home and change the way you live and even the way you love. You can start saying “Good morning!” to strangers and appreciating the skyline. You can embrace the ride back home and gain a new perspective of the world. Instead of being bitter that your departure wasn’t delayed, jumpstart your heart to flutter for the next time you decide to step away from reality because traveling can change your life. It can take you for a ride, slap you in the face, and say, “things might be bad back at home but you will always have to return." That’s just the reality of it.
So, if there is anything that I have learned it’s that traveling is Carpe-ing all of your Diems. It is loving and living and appreciating even the tiniest of things. It is going back home and saying to yourself, “Maybe it doesn’t have to be this way. Maybe I can change and my life will be fine again.”
