I booked my flight to San Francisco for Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend. I needed a next next fun thing to look forward to after Christmas break in Australia. Winter semester is always so long and dreary and I need fun things to look forward to to break it up. So two weeks after I get home from Australia I’m going to San Francisco to spend the long weekend with my sister and her husband and their cute baby girl. I’m really excited. This will be my first time traveling completely solo. I know it will just be flying by myself because I will be spending all of my time there with family, but it’s a good start.
Traveling alone kind of freaks me out. Last year I was taking a class called “Life Planning and Decision Making”. It was an enlightening class and I really enjoyed it. I gained a lot of insights about myself and the way I live my life. I learned that I often don’t make decisions because I am afraid of either outcome. I learned a lot about willpower and decision making styles. One of the final projects we had to do was to set some big life goals and create a five-year plan to achieve those goals. During the process we had to share our plan with a partner and get their feedback.
My goals and plans included travel. I want to go to all 50 US states, all of the US National parks, and all 7 continents. I made some plans and it was kind of scary to really think about it all. My partner asked me a question that I hadn’t really thought about. She asked me if I would ever consider traveling alone. That question caught me off guard and scared me. I feel like I had always been taught that you shouldn’t travel solo, especially as a young, single female. It’s dangerous to travel solo. But there are also a lot of benefits and things to be learned by doing so.
This summer I read Wild by Cheryl Strayed. It’s her story of solo hiking the Pacific Crest Trail in California and Oregon. I loved it. It made me want to hike the Pacific Crest Trail and do it solo too. It made me want to go on an adventure to find myself. I really want to find myself. I feel lost and confused about where I am going and what I am doing with my life. I think I have a plan but then it doesn’t quite work out. But thus is life.
I want 2020 to be the year where I find myself. Again. I feel like I knew who I was for a little bit here and there, but I’m lost again. These last few months have been really hard and I feel broken down. I think it’s almost time to start building myself back up again into the person I really want to be. So here goes.
jamie goes outside 