The Journey to Myself...

My hands gripped the steering wheel tightly as the early morning sun inched above the cacti peppered desert landscape. Despite the AC pumping out cooling air, sweat beaded from my skin in a strong survival response. The only sound I heard above the running of the car was the beating of my own anxious heart. My nerves were driving me to push the gas pedal and continue forward, into a foreign and unforgiving land. 

I was broken. I was scared. I was alone. 

“Did you cry?” A friend asked later that day “When you finally crossed into Mexico, did you cry?”. I couldn’t help but smile at the memories of that morning as I contemplated the question. I had left everything I built over 40 years to drive 4,500km into a country where I had no tribe, spoke little of the language and had no foresight into how the next chapter of my life would unfold. 

As I got waved through the border that day and accelerated into my new home, a deep sense of peace overwhelmed me and I began to laugh, uncontrollably. A soul bearing laugh full of joy. Despite the pain and tears leading up to this moment, I knew that for the first time in my life I was putting myself first. I had listened to my intuition and I was living a life authentic to ME. 

I laughed. I laughed so hard my dog awoke beside me in the passenger seat, sleepily gazing up at me as I let out months of tension in deep laughter. My journey had led me here, to this desert road just south of the US Mexico border. In this moment I felt more empowered and myself than I ever had. Despite having no job and no support system, I was home. Alive and at peace in my mind, body and spirit. I was home.