Wanderlust

Something I am always grateful for is my understanding husband.

I confessed to The Bloke last night that I’m just not doing well mentally and emotionally right now. I’ve toughed it through and not said a word for this past week because he’s been ill, but it’s been hard hanging on. I feel so lost in life. I have no idea who I am or where I’m going. Oh, I have ideas about who I would like to be and where I would like to go (which is a start), but I’m still largely… lost.

He frowned a bit and took a deep breath before saying, “I am in no way criticizing your choices or our choices, but your feelings aren’t…uncommon for someone who went from home to marriage. Only many women get to forty and divorce before they see that they don’t know who they are.”

Smiling, I took the strange compliment he’d intended and thought about what he’d said. While we certainly didn’t get married in a hurry or anything like that, I still did go from living with my parents to living with the man who became my husband. I had a school year of living at university, but that wasn’t exactly prime living experience. For a period of about a year, I even had access to my aunt’s apartment to use as I pleased…but I didn’t actually live there.

I don’t regret my choices in the least way, but I do accept what they have done to who I am now. Now I just have to figure out how to fix it.

I’ve decided on a number of trips – small at first because of my finances, my health (or lack thereof) and my work commitments. I won’t be going to Europe or even staying overnight anywhere (at least, at first), but I will be doing the closest thing to backpacking that I have ever done.

Sunday nights I will pack my back and Monday mornings I will set off on my next adventure. One day a week will be free of what has become the majority of my life: the computer. I will leave the house and walk. Walk, wander, explore, take pictures and get lost, only to pinpoint where I am on GPS so The Bloke can drive by and pick me up.

Any hardened backpacker will probably tell me that’s pathetic. A phone and a pick up each night? But I don’t care. It’s a first step that will hopefully culminate not only in better mental and emotional health but also in better physical health and a greater appreciation for the world.

The thought of getting up one day and just walking… The thought is like a hot bath at the end of a stressful day for my mind. I calm and I look forward to it just thinking about it. I won’t get very far at first, but distance isn’t the point. I will have a whole day to be by myself, to stay in the quiet of my head. I will only need to exist rather than deal, stress, and everything else involved in a day.

I’m so tired of wasting my life. When I reach that quarter century mark for my life in August, I want to feel like I’m truly doing something.