It’s hard to believe we’re already 23 days into our 35-day trip. Everyday has been its own whirlwind of new environments, new people, new (and often arguable) beauty. While it’s difficult now for me to mentally grasp that – holy cow – I’m in EUROPE on the trip of a lifetime, I have no trouble grasping the fact that my days with all of these amazing people I’ve grown to love so much are numbered. It’s difficult to emotionally fathom, so I try not to.
Three weeks ago, I did not know any of the others on my trip. They were complete strangers, living their own lives, some rather parallel to mine, all across the world. What, specifically, brought us together? What stroke of fate determined that this precise combination of individuals would spend 35 days together, visiting some of the most spectacular sites in the world? It's now hard to imagine that there was a time when we didn’t know each other, and that such a time was not that long ago.
At a certain point, “home” and “family” are not definitive. I have found home in multiple places, and family in multiple people. What is mildly scary is that this trip has wrought a stark hybrid of both. There is uncertainty in who will be brought into our lives, and even more uncertainty in who will stay. Home and family fluctuate accordingly, and we grow to be okay with this. But I can only hope that what I'm experiencing now is more than transient.
I could write all the minutia of everything I've done here. But that would be of little use to you, and of even less use to me, since this trip has been not merely what I've done during it, but rather what I will walk away with after it.
What was my life before this? I will never be the same.
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