A Romantic Departure

To be someone, as an artist, means: 

to be able to speak one’s self…

For everything that is unique to an individual,

if it does not wish to remain silent, 

needs its proper language

To say the same with the same words 

does not constitute progress.

Rainer Maria Rilke in Letters on Life

There came a day for me a few years back that changed everything; a day when I knew that I must find my own proper language. I was committed to the same routine of many college people my age, but unlike most of them, I was not happy. I found that the days would go by drudgingly slow while the weeks and months would go by as fast as my dreams would fade away into emptiness. For a long time I ignored the fact that the path I was on was for another kind of person. One day the dreadful thought of responsibility came to me when I realized that my personal dissatisfaction with life was due to the decisions that only I made every single day. Since then I’ve had no more excuses and no one else to blame. Change is not a waiting game. Change happens to those who throw themselves hard against the world and its shocking dissimilarities.

For me, it all starts with the simple click of a mouse. Purchasing a one-way, non-refundable ticket abroad is sometimes the best and hardest thing one could do. For me, it meant that I had to give up my job and the security that came with it; I had to let go of the family and friends who had spoken their voice into my life to hear a voice that sounded strange and unfamiliar; I had to stop grasping for control and accept the random, spontaneous circumstances that occur for no reason at all. Three years ago I did this and headed for Greece and Turkey. In three months I never once planned more than three days ahead. It was a social experiment on myself to see if I could feel whole without the use of institutions native and abroad. I learned that change is not produced by the employment of will but by the surrender of it. I learned to depend on strangers and to believe in the good of humanity. 

So here I am again, years later with undergrad behind me, a ticket in my hand for Central America, and many, many dreams to be realized. To learn another language, to take on a more simplistic lifestyle, to surf world-class waves, to volunteer at orphanages, to work on coffee farms, to ride a bicycle very long distances, to make new friends and to convince old friends to join me, to find opportunity in far out places, to see where I fit in the great puzzle of the world, to see what the nomadic life of Christ was all about—these are some of the possibilities. I will travel as long as I want until I want something different. That is all.

I am leaving my home but not my relationships. 

By writing this blog and you reading it I hope to stay connected. 

Hasta Luego!