A Nomad's Thoughts

It's one of my biggest fears...to be forgotten by friends and family in the old places one use to know so well.

I think it's the fear of every person who cannot be satisfied living in one place, or those who know that they can never go home again permanently.

I find myself at 28 exactly where I want to be for the moment. So far, my life has been interesting, if only to myself. I have lived it according to what I've wanted, and I have no regrets. I've gotten to travel more than most people do in a lifetime. I've seen exotic places, strange cultures and even stranger people that have slowly molded me into a different person than I was even just a few years ago.

All things and all people change. That's no surprise. But it's in the way they change and how it came about that is the interesting part, and the most significant. Some people I used to know have gotten married, become mothers and fathers and now deal will all the triumphs and heartaches of family life. Others have fallen by the wayside in dead end jobs, still in school, and lamenting about how their life has not even begun and yet is slipping quickly away. Some are single mothers, and some are living the single life. They have cars, bills, houses, movie nights, family reunions, etc.

I have none of these.

All my life I have felt more like a breeze than a well rooted tree, more a tool than a completed masterpiece. I've had several people complain that I tend to blow into people's lives and then soon go off again. They would rather I stay longer, if not forever. But, as much as I have loved those in my life, it is not in me to linger.

By the time I was 9 years old I had lived in 13 residences in 4 different states that spanned from the East to West coasts of the USA thanks to my father being in the Air Force. I've traveled around most of the USA, with stops in Canada and Mexico, during three summers with my grandfather and aunt who taught me to see the world outside of my own state and country. I was a born nomad.

I suffered greatly in university. I was bored with my studies and saw them as a necessary impediment to getting out in to the world. I endured for 5 years and countless mind numbing jobs. I wanted my life to start, the life I wanted. I couldn't see myself living in Columbia or South Carolina for the rest of my life. I felt as trapped as one could feel. When I finally made it out, I realized that I couldn't see myself living in the USA either...

I've bummed around France and London, UK for a month, seen Mayan ruins in Belize and the seas and islands of the Caribbean. I've wandered in the sands of the Sahara Desert in Mauritania, West Africa, and currently reside in South Korea, the Land of the Morning Calm. I have fallen deeply in love with my present location but even now, after 2 1/2 years I feel the pull of the open road. I have discovered that I am never so happy as when I am on my way to some new location. Airports are my favorite places to be. I love to go to them even when I don't have a flight. I enjoy sitting in the airport bar or cafe just to feel the sense of excitement of travel around me, even if I'm the only one feeling it as hurried passengers rush by.

I speak smatterings of five different languages.

I suffer from extreme culture shock when I enter my native country.

I crave after the next adventure and thrive on incredible new cultures.

I see my life as an endless wandering. Settling is boring.

The only downside to all of this is that one loses touch with people that meant something back from the place they came from. Some people call that 'home'. For me it doesn't feel right to call South Carolina home. I really only keep in touch with only a few friends in the USA. The rest have either forgotten me or turned against me, seeing my leaving as an abandonment of them or they have simply lost interest in the friendship for their own secret reasons.

As for my extended family, the three who meant the most to me are dead, the last one have passed away less than a year ago. As for cousins and my remaining grandparents, we are not close. They have their own families and concerns and since I have always made different choices than the rest it makes sense. So I really have no real sense of family unity. I miss my brother terribly but he and I have our own lives, and when we do come together it's as if we were never separated.

I would love to find a place that seemed to fit me, some place I could attach the label 'home' to. So far I've had many homes I've loved but none that felt permanent, and I really fear that one of two things will happen; 1) I'll never find a place to call home, or 2) I'll find myself stuck in a place I hate with no way to escape.

Anyway...who knows what will happen...Just don't know how to satisfy my restlessness.