Dread

Although I’ve known for months that I was taking this trip, taking action to make it real has been…well, dreaded, to be honest!  Each time I would think of booking the airfare, I would get the dreads. It was kind of a tier of dread; the first dread was the sticker shock I knew I would feel upon booking an in-season ticket – it can be nearly twice what I am accustomed to paying for the just outside peak season tickets I usually buy. Then I dreaded the cost going up even more during my indecision to buy a peak ticket.   This dread only grew worse with the passing weeks, and I marveled over my ability to sit back in a state of inaction as the days passed. I wondered *why* I wasn’t simply booking the damned flights? I seemed to not be able to determine my dates, where I exactly I was going.  I stressed over how long I should be gone. In adding mileage and countries to the ride, I had also added weeks and I was starting to feel a ton of guilt over being gone for what was stretching into 6 weeks, then 7, now 8. I felt like I was being irresponsible by leaving my husband and dogs for such a long time. To do what, anyway, and why? Ride my bike and sleep in a tent and be alone in foreign countries?  It was sounding very much like self imposed exile and I didn’t see the purpose.

The truth is, I still don’t see ‘the purpose’. If there is a purpose, it is to let go of sense of purpose for a period. To stop obsessing over the ‘why am I here’ questions, and open myself to being where I am in the moment. To let things happen, and not control everything. To go with it. To be flexible. To not know what I am going to have each and every day. To embrace the experience – good, bad and ugly.

Even though I haven’t determined my exact route, or even exactly which countries I will be in, it’s enough right now to commit to the trip by making it real with a ticket.