Heeding The Call

There’s no denying it, I’m a disperser.

My head is always full of projects and ideas for exploration. I have a hunger for adventure that never, to this day, has been satiated. I’m a daydreamer, a wanderer. My feet have taken me to many a great wonder, and still I yearn for more. My eyes have been graced with the beauty of this world and they long for more discoveries, for the elation of being overwhelmed with sights most think only exist in movies or dreams.

Yet, at the threshold of the biggest adventure of my life, my heart is torn. I have a hard time looking my close ones in the eye, because what I see is sadness, incomprehension and a feeling of being left behind. It breaks my heart, and I can’t seem to explain with the proper words that this journey I am about to begin is not an escape from them or the life we share, but a leap into the unknown, a huge breath of new air that will feed my spirit and my soul for years to come.

Tomorrow, at first light, while everyone still sleeps, I will tiptoe out of a standard life and into something completely new. I will take the open road and let the miles roll by the thousands, until I find an appealing trailhead to run or a friendly space to explore.

I will spend the next months running and roaming free, living in the back of my van and following the flow. No schedules, no plans and no responsibilities. I will be looked down upon by some, and receive some nods of approval by others. I will make new friends and be reunited with old ones. I will live, breathe and thrive with nature, closer to Mother Earth as I’ve never been.

But before all of that happens, like many other things in my life, like toeing the line of a great race, I need to take a first step.

And right now, it’s proving to be a tough one to take.