Friday, December 2, 2016

This time is different

From the time leading up to going home on my last trip, I dreaded it.  I wasn't ready.  I had so much more I wanted to do, so much more I wanted to see.  Sure, I wanted to see my family, but other than that, I felt I had nothing to come back to. I had spent so long trying to get away from the small town I come from, only to come back to it.

As I flew in and saw my hometown, my stomach dropped.  I didn't want to be here.  This wasn't home to me, and I wasn't ready for it to be now, or ever, I thought.  Every moment I spent at home I thought about being away somewhere foreign, somewhere exotic.

This time is different.

2 months in on my travels, I started to begin feeling a homesickness I had never experienced.  My sense of adventure for the unknown started to dwindle.  As I see so much beauty, experience so much culture, and do so many new things, I can't help but feel it doesn't mean as much without the people I love.

A year ago, I was a different person.  After telling my mom how I felt she reminded me that this time I am not running from anything or anyone.  I am not searching for myself because this time I am right here.  Experience has given me so many realizations about what is truly important, and where my priorities in my life now lie.

Love has changed me.  In the year from my last trip, I fell in love.

Well, I always loved him, but instead of an insecure, unknowing, unsure me that loved him, it was a me that was confident and sure of myself.  That made all the difference in knowing how to truly love in the right way

A year ago, if you asked me if I would be married and in love, I would have laughed and said no way in hell.  That was before Tanner came into my life again.  He changed everything.  No longer was I running from anything, or searching for anything.  He helped me realize my home was right where he was at.  That sense of home that I never truly have felt in any location, I feel when I am with him.

I like to think of myself as an independent person.  I can be on my own and be completely happy and content.  However, that sense of home is gone when he is.  Once I felt this, being the lonely traveler started to lose its appeal.

I want to see and experience all I can still.  My dream will be achieved to visit every country and experience every culture, however, anymore I don't want to do it alone. Everything I see, I want Tanner to see as well.

This time is so different.  I can't wait to go home.  I can't wait to see my family, and enjoy the cold christmas season sipping a warm hot chocolate by a fire with my parents and sisters, as well as with my new husbands family.

I don't feel lonely.  Loneliness would imply that i am alone.

Of course, I am never alone.  I am with myself.

No, it's not loneliness I feel.  It's just a longing to see and be with the people I love with all my heart.  I crave a different type of adventure now.  I crave the adventure of seeing my family for the Christmas season.  I crave planning my wedding in the midst of the ladies I love. I crave the adventure of creating a home and life with my husband in the UK.

This time is different.  This adventure is coming to a close and I am so ready for it to end.  I am ready to truly begin life.

 Don't get me wrong, I will never be truly tamed or done adventuring.  Never in my life will that fire die out.  The only difference is that now I have a new fire.  One that is constantly nurtured by the people I love and the new life I will get to live.

This time is different, because I allow myself to have love in my life.

I have fallen in love.  I have become love, and that has made all the difference.


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