I had always planned to do some serious travel after graduating, but I balked because I don't usually trust my own instincts. Awful as it may sound, I like to let other people make choices for me. I think this springs from a fear of being wrong, failing, or regretting my decisions. So, I spent most of the summer terrified about what to do next, asking people's advice, hoping someone would come with an answer. Should I get a job... go back to school... move somewhere new... start a career in New York. None of these options are bad, really. Life is laid out on my feet. I even signed up for a certificate program at NYU and planned to French in the hopes of working in Paris. But something wasn't right. I wasn't enthusiastic about the plan. I wasn't ready to start shaping my future that way. I changed my mind. I canceled the classes. I canceled the interviews for internships. And found out that failing to follow your heart is nothing short of torture. When you finally figure out you've got it right, it's so brazenly obvious.
As my wonderful boss Deborah at Taberna de Haro wisely commented, "you have your whole life to be beholden to other people." She's right. I'll come back and start having to make more agonizing life decisions all over again. Get a job, work for someone, work for someone else, hope to move up the ladder, fret about saving money rather than spending it all. But for now, I have an opportunity to follow my own path. Forge my own path, in fact. It is my time. My adventure. Freedom.
It's time to go walkabout.
There's so much of this world to see, and I don't know how much I can fit in (or afford) But I'm going to try my best to do as much as possible. I went to the library and took out no less than 8 travel guides - Lonely Planet, Rough Guides, picture books, the works. And I plan to spend the next few weeks absorbing and planning the best way to get from start to finish with the most excitement and adventure in between.
Having done practically no investigation, I have made a rudimentary map of what I hope to get through on my travels. Here is a link to my proposed route. No doubt this will change after some serious reading, and probably even more so when I arrive and get started. There's also the issue of finances. I guess I'll just wait and see how far my summer savings takes me. Oh, and visas. Ugh...
I've purchased an amazing camera, a Sony Alpha 350. Sure, its a little bulkier than my itsy-bitsy poing and shoot, but I want to take great pictures on this trip, and I'm ready for a SLR. It's an older model (technology moves so fast that April 2008 is an age away), but a friend has had success with this model in the past, and I trust her. Better yet, I talked the saleswoman down from $699 to a mere $435. I hope my haggling skills will be as successful on the road.
So now the recently graduated BU anthropologist speaks: a walkabout is an Aboriginal rite of passage, during which young men live in the wilderness for an extended period of time (anyone who endured Baz Luhrman's Australia would have a very clear picture of the ritual). It's a spiritual journey. I'm not aboriginal, I'm certainly not male, and although I'd love to go back to Australia, there's a good chance I won't see the outback on this trip. But I see this trip as an important part of growing up; a phase in life that shouldn't be missed or ignored. It's about detaching from the individual I recognize as "me," looking at the world in a new way, and returning home renewed and revitalized. I hope that when it's over, I will have a clearer idea of where my future lies. I also hope I will have learned to trust myself. Maybe grow up a little (but not much), and be ready to face the big wide world. Those are my goals. They're fairly simple, really. But I'm ready now...