the travel bug.

"the world is all gates, all opportunities, strings of tension waiting to be struck." - ralph waldo emerson.

the house is empty. the cat and the dog are sleeping next to me. i'm sitting in my dad's chair. i'm stuffed from the blueberry bagel that i just inhaled. my coffee is getting cold. the travel channel is on. a man is walking through greek villages. i feel nostalgic.

i had crossed the boarders of canada and mexico when i was a young girl. i don't remember the exact years. i hardly remember the trips. i remember feeding seagulls in texas, riding in our family's huge purple van with our cousins, and feeling extremely sad when it was time to head home. occassionally, i'll find a few blurry, old photos from a disposable kodak camera laying around the house. every single time i see those pictures, i think to myself, i need to go back.




 when i was in college in small town, minnesota, i began to feel the burning of the travel itch. i needed to go somewhere. i decided that i would go to tirana, albania to visit a few college friends. you might be thinking, albania?! what?! why?! where is that?! yeah, i thought that too. my first big travel alone ... and i choose albania?! well, to sweeten the deal, my friends promised a weekend trip to athens, greece. i was sold.

i remember ... i was laying in bed; i had to share a bed with my friend. the space heater was tucked into our covers to keep us warm. a rooster was crowing. we had just gotten back from beautiful greece. i was talking about how much i loved albania. i was talking about how much i wanted to go back someday. she said to me, "looks like someone has been bit by the travel bug." i smiled and shrugged off that comment. little did i know, it was completely true.







i got back from that trip and could not stop talking about it. at first, i just really wanted to go back. but, as time went on, i came to realize that i needed to stop focusing on that spot. i needed to find a new one. so, as senior year rolled around for me, i knew that i would be crammed for credits in my final semester. what to do about it? go to jamaica to study marine ecology for a few weeks. that was an opportunity that i simply could not pass up.  


oh, jamaica. that was two week "vacation" in january full of studying, snorkeling, tanning, and consuming a little too much rum. (sorry to admit it, but it was just so delicious.)





i went back to school mid-january with a semester stuffed full of credits and a full-time job. i was finishing school with a goal in mind ... china. i had considered it for months, but made the final decision to sign up in february. the goal was to spend a year in china working as english teacher and also as evangelist.

i walked on graduation day in may, despite the fact that i still needed to complete summer school to actually graduate. i told my family that they didn't need to drive all the way to minnesota to see me walk across the stage to pick up an empty envelope, but they insisted. they left for home after the services; i had to stay in minnesota for work. that was the last time i ever saw my happy, healthy mother. two days after my "graduation," she didn't wake up. 

i had to decide if china was truly the correct choice for me. it wasn't easy to make that decision, but the encouragement of family and friends kept me strong. i began training for china on august 1st. three weeks later, i was flying to china.

(probably the ... ) best. decison. ever. i spent a year in china, teaching and sharing the word. the year went by all too quickly. before i knew it, i was preparing to be stateside again. yet, i had another opportunity before me. my younger sister had recently gotten married and moved to bogotá, colombia, south america. well, why not visit them?!

so, here i am ... sitting in an empty house, stuffed with american food, still in my pajamas at 1:00pm. here i am ... waiting for tomorrow's flight to colombia, thinking how blessed i am. here i am ... stressed about tomorrow, stressed about next week's flight to china for another year.

here i am ... bitten and consumed by that travel bug.