Accepting the addiction

Maybe the time has finally come. My addiction to traveling is slowing down. It's hard to describe exactly what "traveling" is. Perhaps it is physically moving one's body from place to place. Some have claimed it is a state of mind that keeps one forever wandering and exploring. Others say it is more like "being" in the present moment. But, my original title for this blog seems to have been lost on me as of late.

It was sort of created on the fly... during or between one of my tromps to South America or driving all over California or the desert Southwest. I am lost about my own history now as the years of moving have begun to blur together. Even recently, my Japanese years are blending together and I realize that I have indeed been here for years. This has not been an escapade putzing around in some far away la-la-land... an adventure without purpose.

It may have started like that, but in the adventure and settling down in the adventure, I have come to terms with something new. This IS life... not just a part of it. Sure it is a chapter, but it is altogether real and important. I have come to terms with what makes me tick, I have mapped out my dreams and I am excited to get started with them.

Years ago, my grandmother laughed at me and said, "Get it out of your system, Dave. One day you will settle down and appreciate your life even more for having spent all of that energy." Maybe not exactly in those words, but I couldn't fathom the truth she was speaking. I reckoned that I would be young forever, always on the move and exploring to my heart's content.

I will always be young forever (and handsome too, might I add!) but this youth is taking on a new form. It is still vibrant, full of life, and looking at the world with open eyes- like those of the 14-year-olds who I watched graduate from Myojo Jr High today. (I took the day off to attend the graduation ceremony at the school at which I used to teach.) But the constant need to move and cover ground is falling by the wayside. I think it is because I have exhausted quite a bit of my energy to do so. It seems that my life is beginning to resemble that prophecy that I tried to discard.

I will always love traveling, exploring and seeing new places, but I am yearning for a change... which embodies characteristics of a different nature. It is hard for me to come to terms with it all because it is so foreign to the way I have been living for the past ten years... but it feels good and natural to be slowing down and focusing on staying put a little more.

I won't jump to conclusions, but I think I have accepted my addiction to traveling. And it has "cured" itself. Like I wrote above, it is a problem that I will have my entire life, but in accepting it, I have learned to live with it- not to fight or resist it, but to love it for what it is. I can't expect to have control of it, but it no longer has control of me either. It is an impulse and a feeling, one that has run my life for as long as I can remember.

But now, as this addiction still beats through my veins, with every pump of my heart, it serves as but only a guide... to guide my thoughts and actions to listen to that very heart... the heart that encourages me, in every passionate moment that I am gifted, to live and to love.