Wanderlust

Today I woke to a borderline strange feeling that I can only seem to relate to "homesickness". It's a funny thing, this feeling, especially because I have never truly felt as if I have had a home (spiritually and physically). In regard to this subject, most of my adult life has been a state of wandering to seek out place that may finally be THE place. The place I plant roots, the place I call home, the place I feel home. Last year proved to be the pinnacle of this wandering. Booking one way tickets, and taking in all of the textures and sounds around me. Is this home? Many different places that varied in people, weather, food, and culture. None of them felt like home. Now, this existential searching did not lie within the realm of the conscious, it very much operated from a primitive part of my core that was not yet explored or illuminated. Until today. The most revealing question I've really ever asked, "how can you be homesick for a place that you haven't found?"

Let's start there. I sat with this feeling of longing. Jazz music filled my space and reminded me of New Orleans, producing a feeling of intense longing. I then saw a picture of the Hawaiian islands and felt pulled so vehemently in its direction that my spirit felt taut and achy. I started to notice that I yearned so deeply for anywhere but here. This feeling has been a part of me since I was child. Feeling caged and stretched at the same time. Looking for anywhere to exist in harmony with the roots that so patiently wait to take hold. Confusingly this arrives in a time that I do finally feel I have a home. I have found a place to grow roots, and I am excited in a way I've never been. So what gives?

A realization washes over my conscious. I no longer need to explore and scour looking for a place to take hold. It's here. The place I never thought I would find is here. In that moment I see an old part of me coming up for examination, and removal. This programming is old and outdated. Time to go. This is a mourning period. Sometimes releasing a part of the self that is no longer serving is uncomfortable for the change is fortuitous, but the self is still losing a piece of the self. It has been there for me. It has protected me from connection and abandonment. It has temporarily eased the pain of having no place to belong.

I used wanderlust, in the past, to "find" a place I thought existed in the physical realm. I pictured a house with all of the dressings that suited me. I imagined how it would feel. I would feel rooted and tranquil there, free restlessness and confinement. My soul warm and at peace. It's almost maddening to envision so vividly a place that may never be found. As I work through I realize this is a mechanism for self protection. My life has been spent independently to the most extreme degree. Travel on my own. Process on my own. Make decisions on my own. Even during the occasional relationship, I hesitated to allow anyone in to cooperate in these parts of my world. I really never did. This is about loss, on many levels. Without attachment to a home I could never suffer the grief of losing a home. Without attachment to a person I could never suffer the grief of losing a person. Roots so deeply entangled in the core of my existence. Wandering became a coping mechanism.

Today, I wake up to the funeral of my "old" self. I want to let her go though it is a world full of pain and uncertainty. I look around at my new home, I look at my family, I feel the roots stretch out past the soles of my feet into the center of the earth. Here I am, I am here. Admittedly I struggle to say goodbye to what was, mainly (I do recognize) for the sake of familiarity. I am walking down a path I have never been and I am afraid, excited, and overwhelmed all in one. A large growing orb of feelings. As I move closer and closer to the end of this transition I begin to feel the grieving process become lighter and lighter. His eyes truly help to see past the now to what will be. I am becoming truly free. Wanderlust is no longer a prison within which I am protected. It is an exploration, an expansion, the way it was built to be. Being is liberating now, just being. I think to myself "welcome home", as I take a leap.