Last October and November, I started to notice a change in the way it felt to be traveling. I declared it the emotional end to my latest around the world travels, though it still clearly felt nowhere near the end of the journey. On 18 December, another end of these travels milestone was reached when I arrived at my new home in Los Angeles. And now I can report the technical conclusion of travels, as yesterday I officially canceled the final leg of my around the world ticket, the flight that would have taken me back to Sydney where it all began almost nine months ago. Nine months, hmmm...
On the practical side, I was holding out to see if I could get a relatively inexpensive visit to Sydney in there, given that half the trip was already paid for. But for a while now I have suspected the timing was going to be bad, for me personally as I did not expect to feel established and stable enough to want to leave my new home. And that feels true.
As much as at any point during my traveling, I feel like so much of the real journey still lies ahead. I do not yet have that feeling of strength and confidence; that all of my self-disruption, leaning heavily on the generous hearts of my friends and taxing their love and patience, bewilderment and (often too public) navel-gazing has amounted to something. I am unsure and sad and sometimes lonely. I still have that light of hope and knowing this is the right path, but right now it feels a little distant, like there is so much more ground to cover than I expected, and right now it is a furious struggle to ask of myself little more than to be patient and stay the course with my eyes and heart open.
And I have been watching airfares for round trip flights between LAX and Sydney, and it is a shocker, in a good way. As of this writing, the best price is $700 on United, departing February to mid September. That's amazing! It should mean a visit to Australia will be totally doable, and that it can be at a time that works a little better for me emotionally and also will more truthfully feel like a visit TO Sydney FROM my home in LA (I do not devalue these seemingly minor technical differences).
And so the trip is ended. I will continue to visit this blog. It was never intended to be solely a travel blog. I should have plenty of musings left to muse. And I can hardly be less frequent than I have been lately, and at least I won't be making pseudo posts with only itinerary changes. Maybe I could blog my grocery lists?