I'm back!

I know it's a been awhile since my last real post.  To be honest I have been a little down lately.  Traveling solo is a great and rewarding experience but it's also not easy.  Add to the inherent difficulties being siCk makes it even tougher, especially mentally. The last 5 days or so I have been really weak and achy in my joints.  Yesterday being my lowest point both psychologically and physically.  The unknown is great but also not knowing where you will be sleeping every night is hard.  The hunt for a place to stay and for optimal activities can be mentally exhausting.  Being homeless is not easy.  There are no breaks.  

The exciting newness of what I am doing has worn off.  It's more real now.  This is my life.  Homeless and alone.  Reality has finally set in.  Luckily I expected this.  I knew it wasn't going to be easy.  I will of course continue on but that unshakeable childish giddiness I had for the first leg is gone.  What I feel now is more real, more raw, more solemn.  I realize now that this is not just something to be enjoyed but something to endure.  It is Something to overcome.

I have a wonderful family back home and I miss them.  It's hard at times knowing I could be with them.  I could be making their day.  I could be giving them happiness with just with my presence but instead I just abandoned them.  I left those who I love and those who love me the most.  What I am doing is not just awesome sight seeing and adventures it is also extremely selfish.  It's hardest when I think about my grandpa and I often do.  The lakes, the fishing, the trees of New England all remind me of when I was a kid and would go up to Idaho to see him during the summer.  I wish I could be with him now.  I sometimes wish I had stayed home and spent all my time with him.  Me and my grandpa just living the retired life together :).  I want him here.  I want to be in that canoe again just him and me, floating down a mountain river like we have so many times.  Never having to assure each other that we are enjoying the trip, or say something is beautiful, because we both know that we see the world through the same eyes.  I miss him, I miss that better part of me.  The me that doesn't have to explain or justify myself.  When I am with him I can finally let go.  I know that I am with someone who knows what I know and sees what I see.

I have seen 4 new states since my last post and have been to Boston.  I'll tell those tales someday but for now I needed to vent.  I needed to let someone know that it's not all sunshine and rainbows out here.  That it's hard.  That it's a challenge.  I am not whining, however.  I embrace the adventures maturation and am excited for what this next stage will bring.  Its going to be more real, more rewarding and yes it will be hard.  But We do things because they are hard.  Because doing hard things brings growth and defines life from the ease that is death and staleness.  

I now know that i have to go harder.  I need to accomplish more and bigger things.  I am hungrier now, I simply am no longer satisfied with what i have been doing.  I need to make sure that I make this worth the sacrifice each day.  Make sure that this is worth my families void I left behind. Leave no doubt that each day is worth it.  It will be hard but as always I will not go quietly into the night.








Sent from my iPhone