"If you could pack up right now, where would you go?"
-Anonymous
So many people have said they'd pack a bag and leave. That if given the opportunity [and maybe some extra cash] he or she would travel the world. Buy a ticket and never look back. To stand in the airport, look at the destination board and think, where off to?
And as much as I may agree, often the answer to that question is I don't know. Then I ponder, then why go? To me, it's a loaded three-worded question.
Letting that question sink in a tad more, this quote led me to lesser ones. That moment when you stare at the destination board not knowing which to choose, what thoughts run through your mind? Entering the gate to the plane, who do you wish waved goodbye to you? If you found an extra plane ticket to anywhere, who pops in your mind? What if you needed something? Needed anything, who would you dial? Who was the last person you said goodbye to? When you cross over, both feet on the airplane, are you sincerely only looking forward?
Just tons of questions we push aside when choosing to travel. Perhaps traveling is easier without these thoughts. Because, quite often, I could imagine how these questions are more so reasons to stay. Reasons to ditch your carry-on bag on the plane overhead and run back into the airport because you answered one of those questions. More importantly, you pondered over it for a bit. And when you did, you realised something. You were sitting in that window seat looking over the runway choosing to leave not to travel.
Maybe a week ago, a class of mine in Spain chatted around a few coffees and beers at a nearby cafe. And my young professor, in so many words, threw this same question of where would you go [after finishing college] in my direction. As he awaited my response, I didn't know what to say. "IDK. I just want to travel everywhere." And he laughed a little but at the time I simply laughed too but now I know just how ridiculous my answer was to him.Was it because I had desired to leave & the destination seemed only to be a chess piece I could manipulate? A question with an answer I'm still trying to understand more of.
For a moment, I thought that to be the reason behind studying abroad. To just leave. To 'travel' everywhere because I didn't want to be where I was. Because it's easier to mask the desire to leave your issues and wherever you are that makes you unhappy under the label of "my desire to travel."
Regardless, I believe it's an important question to be aware of next time you enter the airport. One I think about with each plane I board. Because you want to make sure you're embracing the future, not leaving and running from the past or your present.
