Treading Water

I have always had a restless soul. Always wondering what is around the bend, what is behind the next hill. I have known as long as I can remember that I did not want a “normal life.”

I knew as a child that I was meant to leave my home, my family and explore the world.

My family is military but no one ever told me to join the service.

It was something inside of me that always knew that was my course in life.

For a time in my twenties, I thought I wanted the white picket fence, 2.5 kids and tons of animals.

As I continued making choices and having heartbreak….that idea of life faded.

I used to get asked all the time, like all women do, when I would settle down and have babies.

I explained that until I could be as excited about bringing new life into this world, as I was for planning my next traveling adventure….I was going to wait.

Eventually, I broke the news to my mom that it was never going to happen for me. She accepted it, telling me “some people are not meant to have kids, but I would love my baby to have a baby.”

Don’t get me wrong, I love kids. I just have never felt that pull or desire. If I hold a baby, it doesn’t touch my heart.

It’s impossible nowadays to find a person in my age bracket that doesn’t have kids or desire more.

I try to be as upfront as possible while dating about how I feel.

I don’t want to be a mother, step mother or anything similar.

My heart still hears the call to explore.

Before Franco passed, we had been planning a trip around the US. He shared my passion for travel.

I’ve always wished that I could be a travel writer or work for a guidebook company where I explore and give feedback.

My gypsy soul wants to immerse myself in other cultures, experience things outside my comfort zone and just leave all that I’ve ever known.

I have been living this very safe life. I bought a house, found a job that I enjoy and have fell into a boring routine.

I stopped fighting the current.

I just let myself get carried down the stream of life because it was easier to do that then turn my back on tradition and swim upstream.

I started this past year, swimming against the current but I got to a point of exhaustion.

To where I was basically just treading enough water to stay in the same place.

Not getting closer to my dreams and not doing what was expected of me by society.

I read a story about grief, about how for a long time, you don’t get rocked by the waves of grief……because waves only occur at the surface.

My first year without him, I was definitely underwater. Drowning in my pain, my guilt, the unfinished story of our love.

This second year I’ve reached the surface but I still don’t have my bearings.

It’s like I’m swimming in open ocean. There is no land in sight. My lighthouse is gone.

He was that lighthouse. He was that steady, unwavering support. I was the ship that went on adventures and followed my own course, only to be guided home time and time again to him.

I know I have to learn to save myself, to find the light in me and follow it home but it’s just not there yet.

My light has been out for a while. I’m like an oil lamp that burned as long as I could but I don’t have anything left.

I have to find a way to fill up again, to stay full so I can burn brightly.

Early this year, my friend Chad asked me to do a project with him, a project that we called “Life Goals”.

I wrote down all the things I wanted in life, with very specific categories. Travel, financially, relationship, health etc.

It made me realize that most of what I wanted out of life, wasn’t going to happen on the course that I am on now.

So we have adjusted our course.

We have started a plan. My best friends as I. To leave this life behind and travel.

To see the world on an intimate and long term basis.

By 2024, we will be debt free and there will be no reason for us to not follow our dreams.

Treading just enough water to get by isn’t enough anymore.

We all deserve to follow our hearts into the unknown.

To go against the grain and discover why we yearn for things we can’t explain.

Maybe one day, I won’t need to leave. I’ll find the thing I need to calm my restless soul. Find the thing that makes my heart sigh and say “there it is” so I can stop searching.

Until then, I’m preparing to answer the call.

The count down has begun.