1000 Different Ways

I am equally impressed with and somewhat alarmed by my ability to be with myself. On the flip side of that, I want and need others in my life to share experiences with. This has been a duality present throughout my travels. How can I be content being on my own then crave companionship moments later? Am I going to get used to living this way, without bending to the wants of anyone else? Do I want to live this way, only ever considering what I want in each moment? Is that selfish? Isn’t life balancing what you need and want with what the world needs from you? A give and take?

I was ready. After two and a half months of solo travel, I was looking forward to reuniting with some of my very best friends and navigating Brazil together. What I was not ready for was how intimate I would become with my own tendency to be pushed and pulled by the desires of others. How different it was to not be able to act immediately and fully in line with what called to me in each moment. I learned a lot from this part of my journey: I cannot please everyone, it is possible to disagree with people I often see eye to eye with, I can enjoy being alone and love company at the same time.

Brazil, while incredibly vibrant, culturally rich, and topographically unique, served as a backdrop for experiencing the reality of the disconnect and frustration that sometimes comes with navigating human relationships. There were, of course, moments of bliss and learning and community. There were quiet moments watching taxis drive by the park as the evening sun melted over Rio and soul music played from apartment windows. For me, someone who leans sometimes too heavily on the side of “life is beautiful and human connection is magic,” it was important to experience this. The disconnection was present in my total lack of ability to not only understand or speak Portuguese, but also to understand any sort of expressions or social cues. It was present in a sketchy encounter with a homeless man. It was present in the navigation of making a plan that was satisfactory for each member of the group.

I found myself overwhelmed by the need to facilitate a good experience for everyone, while attempting to consider what I wanted to engage with on a day to day basis. While the latter and the former coincided at times, there were other times where they were entirely opposite. In reflecting on the larger scale questions that these travel experiences brought about, I’ve asked: What is the line between necessary selfishness and unnecessary selflessness? Is it essential to listen to what calls to you alone despite it’s inevitable separation from the paths or ideas of those you love?

This leads me into the expansion brought about the subsequent leg of my journey: a return to Colombia. After introducing my dear friend Abigail Lawes to a few of my favorite humans and key attractions in Colombia, we embarked on a trek through the sacred indigenous forest of La Ciudad Perdida in the Sierra Nevada. In our tour group there were five other extrañeros traveling with us, along with our two guides; a native Wiwa man named Jose, and the sweetest translator and spiritual guide named Davíd. Four of the five other travelers belonged to one family, a mother (Meeka), a father (Tom), and their two daughters (Flo and Sine) from Belgium. The other was Camila, a badass Chilean woman in her 40s traveling solo. These people became our family quickly and effortlessly as tends to happen on difficult, beautiful, and unglamorous journeys through mountains.

Within these other humans trudging through the mud, getting soaked to the bone with sweat and rain alongside me, I found myself opening up to the idea of how many possibilities there are to make travel and exploration a part of my life. Tom is a professor of sustainable city planning. Meeka is a oncologist. They have three daughters between the ages of 16 and 24. They spoke of their family adventures hiking through the desert in Morocco and traveling through Africa. Each year since their youngest was three years old, they have taken at least one family trip and these trips have not been the typical resort stays of a western middle-class family. They have been trips with an element of grit and nature.

Here I was thinking that people who worked 9-5 jobs in areas like academia and medicine could never travel the world, let alone with three children. I was so taken back by the sense of adventure, good humor, and fun that this family shared. Meeka makes the most hilarious sound effects, spurts out the sharpest comments, wears an adorable bandanna around her head, and laughs often. Tom is a spritely dutch man who is always telling stories and making quirky jokes. He is intelligent and funny. And then their children! Flo and Sine are mature and present in a way not many young people are. They were clearly grateful to be there and participate in this experience with their parents.

Camila decided a while back that she didn’t want kids, that she didn’t want to have a partner, that she would retire early and travel the world alone. Despite the misunderstanding of her family and societal pressures to have kids she stuck with her heart and it has led her to become her truest, most resilient, and grounded self. She told us about how long it took for her family to accept that she didn’t want a family of her own, of how difficult it was to leave partnerships behind, and navigate a lifestyle that is atypical. The group of us talked about this obvious contrast of life experiences over several meals and it was wonderful to participate in these conversations as someone still determining all that she wants in this life and sometimes grappling with what seems like the inevitability of giving up some dreams in the face of following others.

Camilla told us of her journey retiring at 44 and traveling. She told us that the only reason she is able to do it is because she has no one to share expenses with. Meeka and Tom joked about how they should get rid of their children in which Flo rolled her eyes and said, “hate to admit it’s a bit late for that.” Camila laughed and said that both journeys can be equally fulfilling depending on who it is experiencing it. It is no better to have a family than to not have a family. There are sacrifices you make on both ends.

At the end of our journey Abby and I found ourselves in the back alongside Meeka and Camilla, two kind, empowered, and accomplished women that lead entirely different lives. Abby asked a question about what life lessons they would pass down to younger generations of women. I can’t recall exactly what their answers were word for word, but Meeka said something along the lines of: the most important aspect of this life is to work hard for the things you want and to give kindness to others. Camilla told us to remember our own needs and never heed the desires of others over your own heart despite how difficult it can be.

These people gave me some insights to the questions of following hearts, selfishness, selflessness, love, alignment, and exploration. It is possible to travel with a big family when you work jobs that require long hours. It is possible to shed expectations and live solo, the places you go and the people you meet as your main companions. There are many different ways to live out this life and each of them can be full of wonderful adventures. Life is a give and take.

I decide what/who to give to and in one way or another it makes its way back to me. The challenging part is determining what it is that I truly want to give to and unapologetically diverting my energy there. There will always be people that don’t agree with my decisions, who judge and pick apart my path, who are living in an entirely different way with an entirely different intention, who will not understand why I do what I do. There will be times where I have to make a choice because it is best for me and me alone. Sometimes I will not agree with my friends and family, but this does not mean we cannot love each other all the same.

One day after a particularly hard portion of the trek, we made it to camp for a break and walked down to the river. The cold water was salve on our blistered feet and aching muscles. I lay with my back in the water looking up at the blue sky as the sun peeked through the swaying branches of a giant willow tree. Yellow butterflies glitted by and I heard Davíd’s childlike laugh and water rushing over stones in the background, the pleasantly muffled sounds you hear when your ears are under water. This became my “beacon moment,” the moment I returned to in my mind when the mountains grew steeper and the rain fell harder.

Because this moment existed, I found everything less heavy. I think that this may be the essence of my life; finding those moments, people, experiences, ideas that free me and tether me at the same time, and committing my conscious energy to them. They aren’t easy to come by, but when I find them I MUST follow them. I think that maybe the most selfless, kind, and radical action is to listen to what speaks to our hearts and, in doing so, inspire others to do the same.