out of touch.

In the early days I used my passport as a form of escape - losing yourself in a strange land can remove you from your daily reality in the same way as alcohol, video games, or fiction can. It's incredibly important to travel for the right reasons: exploration over avoidance, the journey over the destination, and most importantly realizing that the allure of the new and the unusual is not inherently "better" than what you left back home.

"Wherever you go, there you are" is an overused adage but remains one of the hardest lessons to learn when you find yourself alone, thousands of miles from home. Exposure to other cultures does not soothe crises of the self and it doesn't somehow bestow clarity of purpose. In fact I'd argue travel does the polar opposite - it throws everything into question, it shows you a myriad of ways you could be living, and generally leaves you with the uneasiness of insignificance - playfully coated by terms like Wanderlust. For me it's more of a philosophical addiction.

My fantasies of returning to Seattle were unrealistic at best and hint of an inverse irony to what I describe above. I sought to return to solid ground, to be back among the familiar, to open myself up to the possibilities of romance, to get some help with the project I'm working on, and to merge myself back into the conversation I'd somehow lost among my stateside friends. Was my return an escape from an escape? Or did I come back full-circle as intended?

In only a handful of months I've found myself in the perfect little rental, surrounded by all the familiar possessions I've done just fine without. Am I playing house? This disheartened heart wants nothing more than to return to the security I've come to crave in the utter unknown of that endless horizon. THIS is the escape I speak of, and the type of travel that I think can be incredibly self-destructive.

Then again, if I'm to play the part of lone wolf I should be taking full advantage of my dwindling freedom.

Cutting off your nose to spite your face might seem extreme, but it sure makes you breathe easier.

I can't wait to get back on that plane.