Well I’ve soared past my perimeters and sought after something I didn’t even know I was looking for… the real me. I found her somewhere between petting the cheetahs, climbing mountains, and paying entirely too much to park my ass is a chair to enjoy a mediocre meal. I’m not so sure I found this new side because of traveling or in spite of my choice to travel.

The age game is not always friendly in this fierce market of competition of anti-aging creams and co-workers that always seems to get younger. I loved being twenty, twenty-two and had some good moments in those other years; but it was twenty-five that I was preparing myself for “the shiznit” mentally and emotionally.

I had a crap twenty-fifth birthday. No party. No cake. No feeling that I meant anything to the one person I was supposed to mean everything to. I was dying to grow up by settling down…. Although we had already settled, things weren’t right and I wanted to see a ring because his words and his actions didn’t quite match… which could make sense considering where we were as a couple, but considering who we were in each other’s life it was entirely unacceptable. My vivid dreams and his words brought any possibility of this to a moot end. And ironically enough the pain and the heart ache I should have felt I didn’t. It was easier than anything I had experienced in my past relationships, because he made it really easy to sever all remaining ties with a couple of words.

I just sat down and read a year of entries… apparently I have always been strong winded, but there is a trend that has taken a year to recognize and be willing to own, twenty-five was the most stressful year to me. That sounds absolutely tragic; however, too often we forget that without a certain level of stress we die. And I have loved and hated the joys, complications, and feats that have come as a result of this stress… sure I have less money then I had a year ago but I have a new perspective of who I am and what I can do.

In some ways I have always been predictable. Those that know me could probably list at least two things that I will always be on top of and for once I halted life and said, “you know what? I’m going to take five from life.” It sounds easier than it is – really. I didn’t realize how many “grown-up” things I was associated with until I had to reroute, pre-plan, and disconnect myself from specific things. I loathed so many of those moments but I had to do it. If for no other reason it made the sweet moments even sweeter.

So in six months I passed through nineteen countries… several on more than one occasion (apparently Amsterdam was quite magnetic to a single traveler like myself.) I love traveling and seeing new things and familiar sights in unlikely places. It’s always weird to have a rush of familiarly over the most mundane items that you forgot to pack or how you become quickly attached to a brand you’ll never see again. While out on the adventure or upon returning home you get quite used to the question “where was your favorite place/ thing?” And that is truly the most difficult question to answer. I think I would have a better chance to recite the mathematical symbol of Pie to five digits than to limit my travels to one particular moment out of a couple of hundred days. I mean where do I start?

For instance…

à I suppose it would have to be back at the beginning when I had the chance to celebrate my travel companion’s birthday in several time zones and with an impromptu birthday cake supplied by a dear friend.

à From there, I would have to say when I visited baby elephants and was kissed by a giraffe. The giraffe used a lot of tongue and could have cared less about the slobber trail he left behind, but I was more frightful of the damage I could have caused him by the copious amounts of sunscreen I had on to fight the Kenyan sun.

à Ever saw a place that looked like a certain Utopia and realized it was anything but? I know I have. Uganda was a place you didn’t want to inform others you were visiting but in all honesty one of the best places in the entire world. The people, the scenery, the heart of the land was so much more than I ever expected… it truly is a secret place that only those that can look past themselves and the hearsay of others can enjoy, especially when you voluntarily put yourself in a rubber raft and fly down rapids bigger than those in the average toilet bowl.

à The most amazing feeling was standing up inside of a moving vehicle and following a pair of lions. I know I know…safaris are not beneficial to the landscape, or the animals… but as you’re standing in a small group in a tin box looking at the vast plains at sunset trying to understand how such beauty can exist with rawness. Nothing beyond those lions matters when you hear the king roar from the tall grasses below.

à So many times in our world we try to understand and compartmentalize what we think we know and what we should know… it’s ok not to know and ask for help, especially when a young boy, who has just woven you a purse from banana leaves, cuts a branch off a near by tree and asks you to guess that spice.

à One of my favorite ‘photo’ shoots, I stationed myself at sunset while cruising on a man made lake seeking animals and reptiles. Sure, we saw an elephant swim and strained our eyes looking for the flick of a crocodile’s tail, but how often is the moon good enough to eat?

à Lions are beautiful animals, especially when you have the opportunity to get up close and personal with them. Tragically both they and you know that the “naughty” stick you hold will do anything but to walk a lion was beyond my wildest dreams.

à Ever stood beside a cliff that discarded 90,000 liters of water every second? It will not only make you feel small, but will threaten every dry inch of your being if you choose to go without proper protection.

à In the middle of no where when there is no toilet or running water it finally hits you that you might be roughing it (Most would have clued in after the two hour trip in by boat, but hey we can all be a little thick at times.) Sitting around the campfire introducing S’mores to people that have never had refined sugar is always more interesting than hiking into the bush in the pitch black looking for a random toilet hole – especially when you chose to take a buddy and only one light. I will never live that down, but my thinking was completely logical and I’m sticking to it.

à I thought I truly knew myself and what I would or wouldn’t do. I knew I couldn’t jump off a bridge, but could I jump from a plane? Yeah, why not? Looking like the child of Ronald McDonald I donned a red and yellow jumpsuit climbed on top of a stranger’s lap and watched the feet below up pass by the thousands. We tumbled out of the plane and fell for thirty seconds before soaring like a bird. Fuck. It was the most rewarding and exhilarating experience I have ever had. My jump partner was a little disappointed that I didn’t yell, curse, or even talk --- but it doesn’t get much sweeter than soaring over the desert at sunset on the cusp of the Atlantic Ocean (my first glimpse of it) when you have the toggles to guide the view.

à Hot water always brings a sense of comfort wrapped in the false notion that camping in an ant infested tent truly is no different then being at home in your own bed with a closet full of clean smelling clothes. While in Africa, we had more hot showers than I could have dreamed of. Sure most of the ice cold ones stick out, but in some of those fire heated stalls it was all good as it transported you a million miles away. My favorite was where our shower stall had a window that let you enjoy the steam and a view of their vast vineyard. Yup, I remember my favorite shower of a continent, that’s how good it was.

à Sitting on top of Table Top Mountain feels like you’re on the top of the world. Combined with cheesecake, a bottle of rose, and some great gals life really can’t get much better… except maybe when you spot a penguin waddling down the street.

à Deciding what to eat based upon what country you were traveling through to ensure the food namesake lived up to the hype… sadly, it sometimes doesn’t and sometimes you find new foods (or types of tomatoes.)

à I scribbled my name on the Eiffel tower, on the south side… and then on the north side… and somewhere not so crowded. Who knew that a straight laced person like myself had so much vandalism hidden in her pen? At least I know they’ll paint over my handy work in six years (since it’s painted every seven.) 

à I was poked and bruised by Captain Jack Sparrow’s sword… too bad I left my pirate garb at home…regardless, he could have walked my plank if there weren’t so many kids trying to ruin our ‘special’ moment.

à The best pasta in Europe is served in Barcelona at this tiny restaurant with heavy handed drinks and the most flirtatious staff.

à While in Switzerland one has to taste test the chocolate and competitively shop for a knife (since knives aren’t given as frequently as flowers.)

à The Berlin Pride Parade is everything you think it will be and so much more. That is if you imagine: suggestive music, dancing in the streets, freely poured drinks, hot 20 year old Med students looking for that ‘older’ woman, loud whistles, the Village people, crotch less chaps and no horses in sight.

à The Green Fairy is all that and a couple bags of chips. Not only did she bring us some cheeky s’nogs, but the promise that romance isn’t totally dead in Europe’s most haunted city.

à The leaning walk up to for your ten minute viewing was as surreal as paying a Euro a minute for my travel buddy to get hit on in the Blue Grotto by a Phil Collins look alike.

à Climbing a volcano and every single lava flow (which is still spouting off steam) with FABIO to hear a Greek god’s best pick up line to a girl holding a Digital SLR

                                          “Can I mount you so I can screw your zoom?”

à And just when I thought I was too old, I found myself dancing on a bar nearly every night for three weeks chugging back the daily specials to repair the damage from the heat and the potential bad kissers.

à Regardless how short lived it was, I loved finding the tingles a world away from previous realities…sure it was pseudo-intimacy discovered with a single touch, kiss, and sunrise. But it did make me think about what I really wanted or hoped to find. Although I understand perfection is sometimes better left in an ideal location while one’s tan is still present and inhibitions are on vacation mode… and every now and then you need someone who makes you melt.

à I thought they had guards to stop you from walking like an Egyptian in front of the pyramids… nope, nor in front of many national sites. After being so far from history it was quite liberating and a little disconcerting to be able to touch things normally behind thick glass – not that I did, but I suppose if I was a different person I could have.

àOh right, could I neglect to mention that I climbed a mountain downwind of camels in the dark with a flashlight. Though that sunrise didn’t rank in the top three – just following these famous footsteps made it a feat in itself.

à It seems quite romantic to ride a bike through a meadow. Between the windmills and the cheese how can anyone really leave Holland behind?

à Basically, the best bit about my trip is that I had lots of moments where I felt there was absolutely no where else is the world I would want to be at that very moment… it could have been the first time I saw specific stars in the sky, when I looked out into the ocean and know all areas of the world truly are connected, my first glance into a local’s life, or in a moment when my heart willingly beat faster because an animal reacted to my proximity or because someone I had only known for a second wanted nothing more than to be in my company.

So there you have it, my short list… which I know is anything but short. All I know is that I’m no longer… “in a hurry to get things done.” I need not to “rush, and rush to get things done.” And for that I’m now a better person because I have come to terms with what I can and can’t do.

My life has not only changed because I took four thousand pictures and spent many days dragging my forty pound bag to new venues; it changed because it needed to. In some moments this change is for the better; however, the key idea is that I don’t regret a minute of it --- even those moments that sucked worst then I ever fathomed were better than spending another minute in my old life wishing or wondering when things would change. That was no way to exist. I had loved and I had lost parts of my being that took my core and shook it without shattering the main bits which is good because it means I’m stronger than I thought, but that is not without moments of vulnerability.

Now that this is all over I have just hit my one year anniversary of independence. How exciting is that? Sure I have had “dates” and cheeky promises of something more, I have reached this place on my own. According to my Granma I will never get married, because I’m not designed like “that” --- which basically means I’m the only  grandchild in the “appropriate” age range who hasn’t shacked up with someone and there is no hope for me popping out a great-grandchild before the younger crop of grandchildren move up in the ranks. And as offensive as that might be, I think I’m ok with that. I love the notion that I will be able to survive on my own and keep myself in a lifestyle in which I am comfortable by not necessarily living beyond my means. Of course it goes against that image I had originally planned for myself…I thought that by this age I would have comfortably moved into a four bedroom house (with some property), popped out a few kids and had a fifth wedding anniversary – so clearly at my early stages of planning I was not only delusional but winning the lottery twice over.

In the real world I have actively become the person that has promised herself I would not go back to my old lifestyle and financial ruts. Maybe not the most ideal route for someone with the amount of schooling I have displayed on my wall; however, I have turned a new corner and offered myself an outlet where there wasn’t one before. And if I end up old alone and crazy I will have my pictures… and as lame as that sounds, I know those pictures captures the stories that heart yearns for, but ensures that when your mind becomes too overcrowded with the mundane the memories will never be lost. And oddly enough those days I smiled for the sake of being in a new place – without any make-up (which were nearly all of them), without any effort in my appearance, without pretentiousness (since I seemed to always be wearing my only clean top) – suddenly have become my favorite because they reflect who I was that moment and who I hope sticks around.

Yup, you got it; instead of “waiting for the world to change”… I have taken a slightly smaller role and aimed for personal happiness which could possible change the world. Happiness is clearly an inside job. It is very true that at any age when you are comfortable with yourself and your choices you really do think you know everything, but you really only know and have experienced the tip of the ice berg. Now that I have returned home after celebrating my 26^th birthday and find myself living in a shag-o-rific apartment (complete with Monty the Mouse) I have come to terms with a few things about who I am and what steps I need to take next to get me “there.” I will admit I have yet to find the map nor do I necessarily like the implied route of course… the words written to me in my most recent birthday card made do something I’ve done more in the last six months then I have done in the last six years…. dance for no apparent reason, not question it when a random acts happen (like when you are waiting to order a drink someone licks your hand) and celebrate the lines inhabiting the area around my eyes – in a year where tears could have won the war, I allowed myself a few too many ounces of fun and because of that I have many smiles to thank for those developing lines.