zebras don't exactly change their stripes

"with every sun that sets, I am feeling more like a stranger on a foreign shore with an eroding beach disappearing from under me... i always fall in love with an open door

with a horizon on an endless sea as i look around at the ones who are standing right in front of me. "

 -Death Cab for Cutie, My Mirror Speaks

Turned onto this amazing blog by a sorority sister, I have been enthralled with this random stranger's journey.
I cannot help but feel envy as I search the pages of photos and stories nor can I ignore the similarity between myself and this person who I will never meet. My lust for travel cannot be matched, must less understood by a majority of the people that I know. But it goes beyond that. It's not exactly something I can describe with the limiting conventions of language. I stumbled upon a page asking, "How do we know when it's time to go home?" And for a solid hour or two, I pondered this exact question.
The concept of home, however strange with an ever-changing location and perhaps evolving definition.
Where is my home? Is that where I am, home? In a large suburban house full of nothing except junk, antiques, multiple china patterns, stuff and lurking memories around every corner of tears, drunken escapades, hugs, conversations lasting until after sunrise, nights spent sound asleep and nights spent tossing and turning without sleep at all.
Surely, I am still in search of home. I could find and make home out of anywhere. Home is where the heart is and my heart is fractions across the entire world. Part of it is in Vienna. Part of it is in California. Part of it in Alabama. Part of it has to be saved for wherever I end up in the future. Won't where I attend law school, where I practice law, where I work, where I raise a family all be considered, "home"?
Or maybe, I am just confused and little do I know that my suitcase heart is just a girl waiting on a slow-pony home? Back to here.
It is my intention to spend the next year answering this question. When it is time to go home versus when you cannot take it with you. Although, I liked one response that said something along the lines of, it is time to go home when you are more inspired and thrilled at the thought of comfort and stability than of the next adventure or new experience. Will that sentiment ever fill my body? Certainly, at this moment, the opposite is true. And I suppose that is why I am on the front-end of a year of travel instead of on the other end.

As the day of my departure back to a country where I believe I left a small portion of my heart encroaches, more and more people are asking, "what are you afraid of?" or "are you starting to freak out?"
I could not answer it better than my new best friend, Daniel elegantly expressed here.
My favorite part highlighted in blue and Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V'ed below:

“Daniel, I’m so excited to see where you will go and who you’ll meet and what you will eat. But to be honest, I’m also really curious to hear about your fears. I want to know what they are and how you’ll navigate them.”

When it comes to questions posed to me about my trip, the popular inquiry is about my destinations or my trajectory, which makes perfect sense considering a travel-based project such as mine. But for Ashley, as she admittedly jostles with her own big life decisions, she simply wants a reference point from someone else who is in the flux of reconfiguring life.

                                                                             How does one deal with the fear of change?

There shall be no shame in asking this question.

he goes onto say this: 

There are certain fears that one might infer when pondering the idea of long-term international travel. Many of these fears I recognize, but for one reason or another do not resonate on any sort of debilitating level. For instance, I’m not specifically afraid of being lonely, for loneliness has been present when I was not traveling. I’m not afraid of having my camera or computer or personal items stolen, I have mentally prepared myself for this to occur at some point during the journey. I’m not afraid of being hungry or without shelter, as I have a general faith that my fellow humans will provide for me at my most vulnerable moments. I’m not afraid of being hijacked and murdered by disgruntled Columbian terrorists because, well, I’m not planning on going to Columbia. I generally believe that anything tragic that could happen to me on the road could also happen to me (in some form or another) crossing the street in my hometown.

So what are the fears?

My greatest concerns revolve more around what will happen to me after my travels. These fears are most relatable, I feel. Such as, how will I financially support myself in the future? Who will take care of me if I become permanently ill? Will I ever reestablish the wonderful and illusive trifecta of employment, apartment and friends I had somehow been fortunate to obtain in Montreal before leaving? How do I deal with all the unknowns of life?

I guess what I’m arriving to is the idea that travel is not that scary. But life is.

And if I am forced to really focus on travel-related fears, I suppose there is one great concern. It reads like this: In the “me-centric” pursuit of this dream, I fear the dynamics of my relationships with family and friends will change. I’m afraid that this absence is asking too much from them. 

then, he ends with this:

So, I move forward. Putting relationships to the test. Prioritizing “individual” over “community.” Wondering who will still be cheering me on after this journey. Breaking my mother’s heart, once again. Feeling intuitively guided, and making few apologies for my decisions.

And in my moments of self-doubt and wondering if I’m making the right life decisions, it helps to bring out the old “scale of life.” Each time I balance the concerns of leaving versus the potential personal profits, when I weigh the prospective gains against the conceivable costs, the scale keeps pointing to a simple (minimally fear-laced) sentiment:

Go. For. It.

and excitedly, this marks the end of my alphabet challenge. in case you missed it, the last 27 posts have begun with a letter of the alphabet starting with A and ending with this one, Z. it was not an easy task, but it was done.