Tonight, I pack once again. Nothing special, I have done it hundreds of times before. Road trips, bus rides, and airfare have all whisked me across the globe as I chase after something that resembles life. Each Christmas, though, I make the trek home to visit and spend time with those people that helped to make and define me. However, more and more, it feels like just that, a visit.
As the world shrinks, the more adventurous and explorer types tend to find it easier to maintain relationships with those that you love, even when they are half a globe away. However, it is impossible to supersede the distance, relationships thrive when the person is half a block away. Shared experience, face time, moments that do not feel forced or limited are important. And above all, the most important thing for a relationship is time. Time to laugh, to love, to hate, to hurt, to grow, and to do the none too important things.
How we spend our time defines us (a very "duh" statement, but I'll say it to sound smart). As I have aged, I spend less and less time with my family, my base and more with the world at large. I have developed an intricate social network with some of the most interesting (to me) people in the world. They are my family away from my family.
But why should I develop another family in the first place?
As I get ready to leave home once more, I am hounded by a guilt that I have abandoned those that mean the world to me. My mother, my father, and my sister each propelled me into the future. However, I have a nagging suspicion that I just used them and now have left them behind. A balance must be struck.
I suppose, mostly the shift in internal thought process has come about by simply getting older and maturing. Will I continue to abandon the relationships that mean most to me for the next exciting challenge? Will I be content to return home someday? Is this nothing more than being fearful about being homeless, car-less, and soon country-less?
Questions. The answers are the stuff of life.
-Nomad
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