The In-Between; A Journey Home

Traveling to a new place, especially when one is used to traveling, creates a diverse array of emotions. There is sadness when taking that initial step towards leaving - but not remorse or regret. There is excitement for going to a new place - perhaps not new to knowledge but new to routine - and the anticipation of change is usually a good one. However, there is also nerves when entering into something completely new. There are plenty of soon to be answered questions, but that leaves this period of simultaneously unknowing and seeking. I am a child on her last day of high school - prepped for freedom, yet attached to tradition.

I am in the in-between.

The takeoff is the easiest moment. I have time to prep, organize, rest, meditate, or be mindless. I can test the waters of my new place by taking in the surroundings of who else is on their way there. What languages do they speak? How does it sound to me? I can sleep and forget about leaving, coming or going.

I am in mourning, and I am excitedly en route. The time for mourning is brief and sharp, a pang in the heart during the ascent.  What sadness it is to go. What torture endings are, on loop, unclear where it begins again or truly completes its cycle. Every time it is as if I am saying goodbye for infinity. This debt of emotion will keep up until a landing is nearly insight, until the chime of arrival makes itself known. Until a fellow passenger wants to distractedly become my friend. Until then I'm in-between. In between melancholia and thrilled anticipation.

I never stop living as if it is an adventure. This is the enthusiasm of a traveler. As much as goodbyes can make me cry, or day dream about all that was, they never hinder my spirit for adventure.

No single moment deters us from the path we travel down. No single moment can take away the thrilling nature of living. We don't choose the road less traveled by, we choose the wild, where there is no road. We trudge through crunching leaves, up steep rock faces, around glaciers, and through the jungle - each step making our own fortune. An obstacle is not an obstacle if one enjoys climbing it. Sadness is not melancholia if one can have gratitude for the lighter moments. 

The beauty of goodbyes, the in-between, and new beginnings, is in all of the emotion and reflection. I am excited, enthusiastic, thrilled, solemn, thoughtful, heartbroken, renewed, observant, enlightened, and in love with the journey. 

Here I am completing my first long-term travel abroad. I've been to Europe, all over Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. I did it in 16 months. I made hundreds of friends, stayed in hundreds of places, and I did most of it on my own. 

And still the in-between journey is a strange grieving thrilling sensation. It often occurs to me as the airplane taxis the runway, or as I am waiting for the line to subside during the plane boarding. I am leaving behind those moments in that land and time. The moments and emotions become my memory, they become my story, and for the time being, it belongs to only me. It's thrilling to have my precious little secret. It's daunting to want tirelessly to stand on a rooftop and shout to all the world what all these incredible moments have been like for me - to share my story in hopes of enlightening, empathizing, connecting my travel world with all of my other worlds.

Like a first love, I want to announce this infinite rollercoaster romance with the universe, and in that desire to share I fill myself with gratitude for the moments. With that gratitude, the in-between quickly becomes a soothing place, a warm hug that wraps up in me and holds tightly until love is pouring out of my every cell. Its a laugh at the struggles, a kiss to the joys, a smile at the nonsense, and a wink to the woes. Its loving the adventure, and the journey, where ever it may go. The in-between becomes my meditation, my path to the next adventure, my guide to the next enlightening struggle, and my ticket through the portal of time within my internal world. I am so grateful for each adventure, and for every in-between becoming such a gift to the spirit. Its precisely why I planned to take 6 weeks to travel home, and see friends I've met while traveling, rather than return in one fell swoop.

So here's to my heartwrenching mournful 'goodbye', my enthusiastically grateful 'so long', and my anxiously excited 'hello.'

Here's to the next adventure, and making it through the in-between.

I'm coming home.

"I see my path, but I don't know where it leads. Not knowing where I'm going is what inspires me to travel." - Rosalia de Castro

The Traveling Social Worker

I'm sure that travelers can recognize the sentiment, that maybe after some time, it feels as though you put your life on hold at home. It's not a bad feeling, or a good feeling, simply a parallel feeling that there are two lives being lived, and one can easily be paused while the other continues. You have a travel life and a home life. The world carries on. Your family and friends' lives proceed. Maybe you wonder if you being there ever made a difference. Certainly it did, however the thought can creep up on you. Maybe there is nothing you miss, and this disconnect concerns you, or, better yet, thrills you. Maybe you become jaded from a life away from home, constantly having to reaquaint yourself with surroundings - always introducing yourself, having the same conversation over and over. Maybe all of this causes you to miss home, or maybe the fact that you don't miss home at all makes it feel as though it isn't your home anymore. Time no longer exists, only the day to day - money, and basic necessities. You had an education you might not be using, things you did and were passionate about before that don't matter anymore or that you don't have access to. With new knowledge comes new passions, and new passions can make a whole new persona.

When I originally left on this trip more than ten months ago, I justified my abandon by saying that traveling will enhance my career as a social worker. It will give me insight to all kinds of ways of life - cultures, ethnicities, and beliefs that exist around the world. The mere ability to say a couple of words in someone else's language can strongly enhance rapport when empathizing with clients of all diversities. I said to myself, I will volunteer in other countries to help me get by, and that will support the building of my resume during my extended absence.

After receiving my masters degree in social work, I had a few months to put my affairs in order before deciding to leave for a prolonged period of travel. A period that, in time, became more and more drawn-out. So far I am four months beyond my personally advertised return date. By the time I actually do return, my originally planned trip will have more than doubled in length. Spontaneity is a beautiful gift, considering that concrete travel plans are as real as a "worse case scenario." Everyone can imagine how it will go, but no one sees it come to pass the way they envisioned. Definitive travel plans on extended journies never follow through, and only seem to prevent incredible opportunity. I learned this a long time ago, and for the most part, threw limits, expectations, and deadlines out the window.

As freeing as it has been, lately I have felt as though I put my entire career on hold to travel the world. I can't help but recognize that, at times, my experiences are more for personal gain than they are for educational knowledge that will 'enhance my career.' Since most service opportunities on this side of the world require the volunteer to pay for participation, the idea of building my resume abroad became distant and virtually unrealistic. Sixteen months of "unemployed traveler" may not be the best way to sell myself to the next employer. Certainly not with the argument that such a long absence may have caused me to become out of practice.

All of these thoughts about my absence, and abandon, had been rushing in as a full year of travel rapidly approaches me.

The other day, a symbolic gift was sent my way that would later bring me towards feelings of fulfillment and purpose. I received in an email a post-test survey concerning my graduate degree specialization in integrated primary and behavioral healthcare. As I completed the questionnaire I found that most of the examining questions went as follows: On a level of 1 to 5, rate how confident you are in working with clients of different cultural backgrounds (1 being not confident, and 5 being extremely confident). Topics included; communication using nonverbal behaviors, racial identity, language barriers, educational background and interests, gender role and responsibility, role of elders and children, recognizing your own personal values and beliefs and preventing or resolving their intrusion into practice, comfort when entering a culturally different world, similarities and differences between cultural groups, clients refusal of treatment based on beliefs, need for cultural care preservation/maintenance, cultural sensitivity, dealing with racism and prejudice of clients while maintaining a non-bias practice, religious conflicts, values, etc. etc. etc.

About halfway through I began to laugh out loud at my previous concerns over 'enhancing my career.'

Maybe I am no longer in a therapeutic group setting - teaching mentally ill women how to appropriately cope with feelings of anger while living in a homeless shelter. Maybe I am not doing one-on-one private in-home therapy with hospice clients. Maybe I am no longer doing in-home structural family therapy with troubled youth and their parents in the struggling heart of Brooklyn. What I am doing is communicating on a daily basis with people from around the world, learning about religious and cultural practices, coping with my own discomfort in rural and suburban underdeveloped settings to the point where there is no discomfort, understanding the basis of my values and how they differ from the people around me, learning about wars and racism between ethnicities I didn't even know existed, using different languages, seeing firsthand the daily practices of different cultures, understanding traditions and ways of life, experiencing fundamentally complex and corrupt governmental effects on citizens, living in other peoples' homes, practicing different religions, teaching about love through my own openness, etc. etc. etc.

After taking the post-test, I realized, I haven't left a life on pause somewhere. There is no "home" to go back to or life I left behind. There is no extended "absence." I have never been more present. I am home, everywhere I go. I feel it is a gift to be able to say that even after traveling to 43 different countries in my life, and counting. I can find comfort in anything or anyone, in myself, and at any location. Life before travel, is simply that. It's not continuing on its own - there is still a life being lived. This concept of living a paradoxical double life doesn't exist. People at home will go about their lives, as travelers go about theirs. We will grow in our way, and they will grow in theirs. At the end of the day, I have captured more in a moment than I could possibly have dreamed of in a lifetime. No matter which way we spin it, it is for personal gain - the kind of gain that will make us better practitioners, friends, lovers, and empathizers. The kind of personal gain that benefits everyone wey meet. Every backpacker must be a social worker to an extent. Every traveler must have this knowledge that enhances any career or relationship they have. It requires an openness, a tolerance, a patience, a self-awareness, and an overall understanding of one's personal role in humanity.

I used to think that when I decide to call it quits with long-term travel, or put it on hold until further notice, that is when I will settle down and begin my professional career.

The truth is, I am settled, and I am practicing social work every day. The important thing for all travelers to remember, is what this survey reminded me. Although we may not be working or volunteering, or even interacting with locals every day - we are spreading wealth and knowledge around the world. In return for satisfying the basic human need to participate in humanity, travelers gain an immeasurable growth and goodness that can only effect positive change within and without themselves now and forever. I dare others to be their own genies, grant their own wishes. As travelers do when they choose to travel, I encourage you to also follow your dreams. It only makes us better at being.