While Jason suffered from some revenge that Peru was taking upon him alone in our hotel room, I spent our one evening in Lima dreaming of seeing the world while curled up on a stiff orange chair in the hotel lobby. The floors were a cool white linoleum and throughout the evening hotel patrons came and went, chatting mostly in Spanish with the hotel staff as I perused the internet on my iPhone. I read blog after blog of individuals and couples who, in one way or another, had left their everyday lives for something else. They left for different reasons and they went to different places, but they all whittled their things down to one or two bags and set out to see more of the world than a nine to five job could offer most of us. My imagination was alive and running.

Every time I get on an airplane, and particularly when it is leaving the United States, my existential angst and imagination come to life. There are so many sights, sounds, languages, scents, colors, ways of preparing, cooking and eating food. So many different angles from which to see the stars in the sky, to greet another human being, to think about life on earth and after. The lives that have been and are being lived that are unknown to me draw me in and overwhelm me; how will I ever know them all in the short time we are given here on earth? This desire to touch it all propels me forward. What if we could be those people? Those radical people who disengage from the known in exploration of the earth and our place on it. The hours we spent hiking in the Andes before arriving at Machu Picchu, learning about the Quechua history and drinking coca tea in the cool mountain air only left me wanting more.

Checking in for our Southwest flight today, my eyes welled up with tears as I remembered that evening in Lima nearly three years ago. I wondered then if I could be the person I dreamed of being. I wanted so badly to be a woman that choses adventure over fear, expansiveness over familiarity, mystery over stability- to live my one wild and precious life fully. These past few weeks of saying goodbye to friends and family have walked the line between a full heart and a broken one as we exit the physical presence of our community and the rich currency of love they fill us with. It has also been guarded by the disbelief that this is really happening, that the dream is moving into reality and that reality is ours. Stepping onto the plane this afternoon, I realized that I am her that I’ve dreamed of.