Homeward Un-Bound: Leaving for Panama

So I leave tomorrow for another country…again.

For the record, I don’t have a “30 countries by 30 years old” goal or an itch to find some deeper life meaning by traveling the globe. No. Instead, I have come to realize that I am, for lack of a better definition, a nomad. Nomadess—that sounds better.

I was born in Chicago, raised in Atlanta, and chose to go to college in Pittsburgh. Regrettably, I don’t call either of these three places home. I don’t call any place home. As a matter of fact, I can’t call any place home. I haven’t been anywhere that feels like it…yet.

Now I know I just stated that I don’t have an itch to find some deeper life meaning, so before the hypocrisy accusations begin, let me clarify that I am not on a profound mission to find a beloved “home” by traveling as I do. I have already come to terms with the possibility that maybe I’ll never have a home. And before the violins begin, I also want to clarify that I’m okay with that possibility.

I travel as a human being, not as an American tourist, a spring break destination junkie, or a Baptist missionary. Robert Louis Stevenson and I have this in common: “I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.”

Homeward Un-Bound: Leaving for Panama.

In that regard, I’m traveling to Panama tomorrow as a student, as a writer, as a “casi con fluidez” Spanish speaker, as a fashion addict, as a lover of all things blush pink—as myself. I don’t have a sightsee list, a travel itinerary, or an agenda (other than the one I’ll be using to mark when assignments are due and when exams will be given).  And I especially don’t have a plan. I just plan to be myself for another three and a half months while in a foreign place that will, if it tries hard enough, be accepted as a “home” for me of some sort.

There’s an immense difference to me between a traveler and a tourist. I read somewhere once that a traveler sees what he/she sees, and a tourist sees what he/she has come to see. Whoever wrote that was genius, and whoever is unsure of its meaning…is either on a traveling sports team or most likely falls in the tourist category. I can find monuments, museums, and displays of architecture at its finest anywhere I go. I can find traffic, rude people, bright city lights, and visible starlit skies above and below the equator. And honestly, I can find a little piece of home on every city, town, and country in which I’ve placed my size 8.5 global footprint, (which reminds me that Costa Rica will have a place in my heart forever).

In closing…If you ask me where I’m from, I’ll tell you a lot of places. And if you ask me where I’m going, I’ll tell you the same.

Homeward Un-Bound: Leaving for Panama