As a kid, I never really traveled much. Growing up in Lincoln, Nebraska doesn't provide an endless stream of nearby traveling possibilities. The closest "Metropolis" is Omaha, and, while I went there a lot to visit all of my family (who had lived in that area since arriving by boat several generations earlier) it didn't really provide me with much enrichment.
Say what you will about the Midwest...but I can tell you from experience it is anything but culturally diverse.
Most of the major trips my family took was all before the age of 4, and I certainly don't have any relevant memories from them, besides seeing Mickey Mouse for the first time. The only major trip I do remember with relative clarity is when I was 9 and we went to Disney World in Florida. It was the first airplane trip I'd take, and I was just filled with wonder and excitement with how new and amazing everything was. The ocean....the sand....the sea food....the thrill of being in some place totally different from the only place you've ever known.
Several years later, I would move to Tennessee with my family, and then several years after that North Carolina. I resisted the move from Nebraska for SO long. Denied it, even. I wanted so badly to still live in Nebraska, for that to still be who I was. And after all those years of resisting...trying to pretend I was still friends with the group of school mates I grew up with....I realized I needed to let go.
When I did...the world changed for me.
When I finally let go...I became a nomad. I no longer had a "home," a place of origin. I became a part of all of my surroundings. I wasn't from anywhere, I belonged nowhere. I was free to roam about the cabin.
It was a feeling as debilitating as it was liberating.
I still struggle with that sense of wanting to belong somewhere...but what I am really doing is stalling my need, my undeniable obsession with wanting to travel and experience the world.
There is a hinderance to that obsession, though...MONEY.
So...while I wait for the day that I have enough money to push forth and see the world, I am going to write about places I want to go, places I have been, and the place where I am now....which, incidentally is the place I was born.
So...I hope you will come along with me as I travel in my mind...and maybe, just maybe, someday I will travel in person to these places and write of my experiences there.
