Miner's wife: Are you two looking for work?Ernesto Guevara de la Serna: No, we aren't looking for work.
Miner's wife: No? ... Then why are you traveling?
Ernesto Guevara de la Serna: We travel just to travel.
Miner's wife: Bless you ... Blessed be your travels.
-- The Motorcycle Diaries
The pain begins in my stomach before shooting through my lungs. Inside my head, my mind races faster than any machine I have known. This experience sees feelings of hunger, determination, devastation and depression blend into a complex cocktail of emotions.
The hunger to travel, to breathe new life into one's free spirit after years of neglect, is unforgiving and insatiable. Memories of past travels are held onto like fading final breaths. Those close to and around you, can serve as reminders of how little you have seen and how many opportunities you ignored. Yet, with better perspective, they can also remind you of how much there is out there to see and experience and just how possible it all is to accomplish. Opportunities to still be found or created.
This is not to suggest that restlessness and uncertainty do not still occur. For me, these feelings are familiar visitors. Restlessness because, one month removed from my 22nd birthday and having recently watched most of those close to me graduate, I have one more semester of college before I can do the same. I see and hear of backpacking numerous spots on the globe. My girlfriend has stacks of freshly checked out library books on Colombia, Peru and Ecuador as she prepares to see South America during the same time in August that I will find myself again enclosed in a classroom.
Uncertainty takes over even after the reassurance is delivered that time is plentiful for me to travel. I often find myself on a seesaw of perspectives as I shift from the more pleasant thought of all that I will see when the opportunity arises to the likewise real and scary realization that tomorrow is no guarantee.
I, like more than 60 percent of United States college students, will be graduating just slightly later than I had hoped because two years of community college found me with a deficit of credits needed to graduate with a bachelor's in journalism and a minor in economics. Thus I must remain here until December.
It sometimes feels like my feet are encased in cement while those around me advance onward. I have nothing else I wish to accomplish here and therefore am struggling to find something, anything to look forward to this fall -- other than the fact that these next few months will be a means to a greater end.
One of the prior travels that I hold close to me occurred just this past spring in Costa Rica. I joined my girlfriend, who had studied there for seven months, and three other friends as we backpacked for a week. Memories of bus rides as scenic as they were long, treks through the jungle, dips in hot springs and vast culinary experiences are held firmly.
I found beauty through simplicity on those rides and in walking around in the towns and places we stayed. Finding such enjoyment out of that simplicity is something as addictive as anything I've experienced.
It is Latin America and its diversity of countries, people, places, food and culture that is the object of my hunger to travel. It is often all I find myself thinking about when I am not reading books or watching films and television features on the countries. This is not to say that there are not many other spots on the globe that I wish to see in time as well.
This hunger is something that is often both exciting and invigorating. Seeing new lands, finding new experiences and having someone to share them with is something I long for.
However, right now even the word "travel" can be difficult to read, hear or say. It suggests movement and exploration. It suggests physical sacrifice for spiritual gain. It suggests many beautiful ideas I must wait for.
It is with that in mind that I must realize that this fall will indeed be a waste of my life if I let it be. I must find a purpose extraneous to sitting in a classroom. Creativity and improvisation must be put to use whether it is through writing and reporting for my school's student-run newspaper, outside of it or both. I want to be useful and to make a difference in this life. These following months must find me accelerating toward that goal and not plateauing.
A sense of adventure and free spirit are qualities that I hold close to my heart. Before my time to travel again arrives, I must find a way to let those same qualities thrive at home.
This is written in hopes that it may find a reader in the same or similar state, or anyone who can relate through past experiences. The earth is here for us to walk it. Our time to do so will soon come if it hasn't already, and we will be all the better for it. If we are to make an impact, we must do so not just at the places we want to be, but also the places we already are.