New Years Part one: Growing up as a Traveller

I finally let it out. I had been holding it in for so long and I finally let it out to Tracy. I realized I shouldn’t have left all signs pointed to Tracy stay, stay in Canada. There are opportunities here, you can write here, just write, write now! I don’t even know why I left Canada it’s just what I am used to doing...leaving. Most people don’t have the nerve to pick up and leave and start new in another country but that’s what I know how to do best. What I don’t have the nerve to do is stay anywhere or with anyone for that matter.

I left Canada very abruptly I knew I wanted to come away traveling I wanted to travel Brazil I wanted to cruise the Amazon but I didn’t plan a thing. I was writing for GPSmycity making walking tours and competing to be the Air Transat vacationers. I still thought that they were going to call me when I was on the beaches of Colombia. However if they didn’t call it no longer mattered all that washed away because I was on the beaches of Colombia. Everything washes away, responsibilities, relationships turned sour, growing up. When you get on a plane it seems time just freezes, you are refreshed and new. Unfortunately time actually doesn’t freeze, people at home move on and up while I search for my next hostel job or serving on a beach. Life is great when the weather is warm, the fruits are abundant and every hour is beer O’clock. However even though I might not really have grown up in the normal sense like getting a serious job, getting married and have screaming snot nose children it snuck up on me that I had grown up as a traveller.

I have been unhappy traveling with no stability I know things work out in the end but it’s ridiculous to travel for six months and once the money runs out go back to living in my parent’s basement until I can get away again. I have neglected my family and friends for years looking for new friends and family on the road. I was happy to meet new interesting people in hostels but now I’m just sick of it. I want a partner in crime to share it all with and to make fun of the rest of the wankers with. I have always known that Canada wasn’t the place for me but whenever I stay somewhere else for a certain period of time I get restless and want to leave once normalcy falls upon me. I always said I need to leave a place once it starts to feel comfortable.

When will I ever settle down or live in one place? I always answered that with, “when I find that place.” I had some heart to hearts with my Italian friend in Santa Marta who knew Italy wasn’t for him and he doesn’t feel like it is home when he goes back but his life in Colombia is very different, he runs a hostel where all his friends are the guests and they all eventually leave. The locals aren’t so easy to become friends with and the women just want to be in a relationship. He loves it there and wants to make it his home but in the end the best advice he gave me was that I could spend a lifetime looking for that place to live where I am happy but happiness it found within me.

I have a lot of friends who also spend their lives traveling the world and not being the norm. People that really understand me and after I completely broke down in Buenos Aires one of my friends wrote me this:

“It’s the gradual progression of life as a traveler. The world is vast. We've been put here to explore it. Cheer up. Happy New Year.”

Then I got an e-mail from him. I left him years ago but will never get rid of him entirely. Even though we don’t really talk I always have him as my support (or drill sergeant in my head telling me to suck it up and be a soldier)and this instance when I was down and out I actually heard from him. Basically he was telling me the same thing; “You travel the road hard to learn the lessons of life, only to learn that all you've achieved is a delaying action and a criminal neglect of your family. I have also understood the wonder of the 'medium-term travel' - a two month trip which doesn't have the two month 'getting nicely stoned and lying on a beach optional add-ons which I was so fond of. You lose a little something in the writing because your too busy taking it all in and have little time to mull over it but its exciting. Settling down is only settling down in their eyes. You can have a base and still see and do loads. Anyways, at the moment you are on a journey whether you like it or not and if you go back to Canada before winter is officially over, (and I mean when the fucking groundhog comes out to play), I will be bitterly disappointed. So get your shit together and get down to Patagonia.”

Huh well shit, I did get my shit together figured out my travel plans for Brazil and thought fuck Patagonia why the hell would I pay money to freeze my tits off and see glaciers, I’m from Canada. I want beaches, hot men and something new. I want to meet a new culture and challenge myself. I am Brazil bound!