A year ago, I decided last minute to travel over the holidays. I say last minute, but it was only last minute to anyone that knew me. I just hadn’t let myself admit it out loud yet. For transparency sake, it wasn’t until a quick trip to CA when I found myself in the Tarzan treehouse at Disneyland, that it became clear:
Fairytale land wasn’t cutting it. I wanted to go to the actual amazon.
That clarification was important because I wasn’t craving a “mission trip” abroad. There is a place for those kinds of trips, but an organized trip meant to “help” with the itinerary laid out for me, wasn’t appealing. I wanted to put my body near parts of the earth people hadn’t acted entitled to yet. I didn’t want the safety of a “retreat.” I wanted the ability to explore a place in an organic way. It felt incredibly privileged, and it was. But I think the work of decolonizing travel starts with intention. I wasn’t going as a means to be “changed”. I was going because what I needed more than anything, was to do something completely out of the ordinary. Peru had been on my radar for awhile, and so when the timing made just a little more sense than not, I booked the ticket.
What followed on the plane ride to Lima was a lot of anxiety. But the truth is, I wasn’t afraid of what would happen. I had lived my worst fear years prior. I was just afraid of how it would be perceived.
Of course I wondered if doing this on my own like I had wanted to, could lead to my demise. But I’ve learned since that that’s what breakthrough’s feel like. The line of self sabotage and expansion is really vague.
What would follow in that two weeks, still feels like it was just a dream.
The amount of divine timing and wild coincidences, was other worldly. It felt like the things that had been in my head for awhile, were coming into my reality. And if that sounds simple or like it was all a breeze, that’s just because I’m only sharing the short version of the story here. I do think there had been a huge gap between the life I was living and what was exciting to me, so I feel grateful that this trip reached a state of flow in the way it did. I think that had more to do with removing expectation and being in a state of acceptance than anything else.
There were so many highs and lows during the two weeks I spent there, and when I sat in river of the jungle on Christmas Day with friends I had connected with along the way, I couldn’t believe I almost didn’t make the trip. The friends I had met were biking across South America, offered to help me make it happen, to stay a couple extra weeks. Maybe join them on a bike myself. But I knew staying longer, was out of resistance to other work that was being asked of me. I knew there was something to be made of this journey, and in order to do that, I needed to get back to my roots first.
This month, I have felt the same urge to do something out of the ordinary. For me, the same fear I felt on the plane, comes up each time I hit submit on something I made. I decided to dance with that fear this month. Because this time last year taught me that when it comes to seeing your urge all the way through, any losses that come from that, were never gains to begin with.
