traveling

Whenever I go away anywhere, I never get homesick. I never want to come home. Nikki, with whom I usually travel, does want to come home after a while. "I like to go places, have fun, but I also like to come home," she says. She talks about how she misses her boyfriend and her dogs. But me - when I go away to a place I love, I completely fall under the spell of the place. I'm captivated. The place has my heart, and leaving is like having to break off a new romance.

When I was in Québec, the thought of coming home seemed almost unbearable. I desperately didn't want to leave an astonishingly beautiful place and return to the old routine, the street I've lived on almost all my life, and the boredom of my job at home seemed too agonizing to think about. I dislike the predictability of being at home. Even though things can be difficult when away - a language barrier, not knowing your way around, etc. - I love that difficulty. I love the challenge of finding your way, literally and metaphorically, in a new place. For some reason, walking down the old cobblestone streets of Québec or sitting on the boardwalk overlooking the St. Lawrence River, I had a feeling of belonging more than I usually do at home.

I also love how, in a new place, you can be anyone. Just from seeing you for the first time, no one knows where you are from, what language you speak, what you've done, who you know, or anything. Leaving home, I step into a new world of possibility where anything can happen.

Every time I travel I realize again a need to move away, to another city or even another country. I have this desire for adventure that can only be satisfied by going to new places, not just for vacation, but really making a life somewhere new.

Yes, if I moved far away, I would miss my friends at home very much. But I think the best friends will always be friends in spite of distance. And having friends far away means more places to visit. ^^