It's beside the point that I received this fitting fortune cookie message in a Vietnamese restaurant. This unexpectedly spot-on message startled me into a brief silence. The truth is I was excited about my upcoming trip to Nepal, but it posed a different sort of challenge than previous travels had, particularly that it was more physical and cerebral in nature.
Travel is cerebral. Whether you're surfing, trekking, yoga-retreating or relaxing. Where you go, what you do with your limited time and the attitude you take drive the intensity of this factor. Some people set out specifically, excuse the cliche, to find themselves and discover that they were already found. Others set out to relax and are hit with an unexpected evaluation of one's own life in the process of seeking ignorant bliss.
As my fortune teller (cookie) had warned, "prepare". My impending vacation would be a test of my physical endurance, my ability to simplify -- a mental shifting of priorities. I went through the plethora of emotions from the idea to flight booking to planning to packing to destination. In a vain attempt to prepare for the Himalayas, I tried to maintain a regular running routine that incorporated hills and/or stairs. Each time I barely made it to the top of a staircase, out of breath and discouraged, I wondered how I'd fare. Or rather, I came to the realization that there was a wall, a breakdown of sorts, and it was only so far away, waiting for my surrender.
I was almost embarrassed to even admit to friends that I was trying to train (even now I still hold on to "trying to train") because I could almost always hear myself speaking in echoes, like in a bad telephone connection. Halfway through your sentence, you hear yourself saying the first bit and realize how ridiculous you sound. It's startling to hear your own voice and even more so when it sounds something like "Well, I walk to work everyday, so I should be good to climb Everest." Okay, so maybe I exaggerated for effect.
I kept my fortune cookie message in a pocket of a dress that I wear often. It was washed repeatedly and I left it there, as some sort of test, I suppose. Sure enough, each time I put the dress back on and reached into the pocket--which is why I love this dress--there it was, folded neatly, no visibly fading. I began to dislike the choice of words in the message.
Not an "important" or "life-altering" trip. And not a "journey", just a trip. I tried to glean more specificity out of this generic, any-man message and only then did I realize how fully I'd convinced myself that this trip was for me without thinking too much about it.
Then I realized that "exciting", as much as I dislike that word, was precisely the right word in this case. "Exciting" is a descriptor that lacks confidence. If it were a colour, it would be gray or brown--shades produced from combining various primary, more specific, colours. That was how I felt about this quickly approaching trip.
I resolved to let the various emotions combine into what could only be described as daunting excitement.
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