Nine Days

Nine days. In nine short days I am about to do something that I have wanted to do for a very long time. I know that deep down inside of me the girl I was when I backpacked Europe is still there. But how far down is she? Is she really still there? Will I have the same courage I had then - at 21 - now, twenty odd years later? I can only hope so, because I am about to take a huge step of faith. I am about to leap from a cliff in the most remarkable swan dive, but I fear it might land in a belly flop.

When I was a child I was a homebody. I cried if I left home and went to sleep-away camp. I enjoyed myself, but I also felt secure at home with my family. That was where I belonged. With my people. I am not much different now. My children and my husband are my people. Not my house necessarily, but the people who live there. So I am a homebody, and as long as I have my family with me I am fine.

One would think that a homebody would not have the nerve to strike out for Europe all by herself. Perhaps not. But at the same time as being a homebody, I am also a person with an insatiable sense of adventure and need for spontaneity. Life can never be too boring or mundane, or I just have this need to switch it up. If I don't have a bee in my bonnet or a project on the back burner, then I am restless. I need to have something on the go, or something in the planning.

Europe was the most remarkable trip of my life, and I brought home so many memories. I wasn't wealthy, instead, I traveled on a shoestring, and worked my way through England as a bar maid, then a kitchen maid, and of course, I baby-sat a number of children, as that was always my passion. And then through the kindness of strangers, and the gift of gab, I made myself a bunch of instantaneous friends while on the road. Just traveling from Genoa to Rome I hooked up with a couple nuns and shared a dictionary and a conversation, and before you knew it the trip was over, and they blessed me by leaving with me one of their rosaries. That's the way of the road - kindred spirits sharing stories over long miles. Friendships are made - whether long term or short, but made all the same.

And I long for that feeling of freedom again. Of the open road. I have this nagging need to be unfettered, to feel like a gypsy with no strings attached, no past and no future, just the moment. Each day to be lived as it unfolds before me.

I have experienced this before, while traveling in Europe, and there is nothing like it. A particular moment that has never truly left my mind is one of gazing up at the enormous digital sign in a train station in Germany. Destinations were listed in two columns, and on that day I looked up and had to decide where to travel to next, and I remember vividly thinking that I needed a good night's sleep, so I had better choose a country with at least an eight hour travel time.

I never really expected to take another trip like that, but I suppose if we are honest with ourselves, at some point the real us will reemerge, and to be true to ourselves, we really ought to let it happen, and who knows what excitement lies before us!

It is certainly a wee bit scary, and I am a little apprehensive, but according to my oldest son, Colt, he and I have "extraordinary will power." And he "considers it to be one of our greatest assets, because we do whatever we put our minds to."

Therefore, I am taking the bull by the horns, or rather, my 15 passenger van by the steering wheel, and I am loading a portion of my eight children - the youngest five - and heading for the open road. I have the will-power and the determination, and of most importance, I believe that God has blessed this trip, and He will see us through. Whether it be fifty miles, five hundred miles, or five thousand miles -

A Grand Adventure Awaits!