January 1st, 2009 I left my life in Cincinnati, Ohio in the United States to work my way around the world. Moving westward, I've made it through New Zealand, Australia, Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, Nepal, India and Italy, finally coming to rest, for now, in Istanbul, Turkey. I completed the journey this November when I returned home for U.S. Thanksgiving, afterwards coming back to Istanbul, my current home.
It ain't no sin to be glad you're alive. - The Boss
Life shrinks, or expands, in proportion to one's courage.
- Anais Nin
I had been vaguely bored with my life and it's repetitions -the half-finished, half-hearted attempts at different jobs and various studies; had been sick of carrying around the self-indulgent negativity which was so much the malaise of my generation, my sex and my class.
So I made a decision which carried with it things that I could not articulate at the time. I had made the choice instinctively, and only later had given it meaning. The trip had never been billed in my mind as an adventure in the sense of something to be proved. And it struck me then that the most difficult thing had been the decision to act, the rest had been mere tenacity - and the fears were paper tigers.
One really could do anything one had decided to do whether it were changing a job, moving to a new place, divorcing a husband or whatever, one really could act to change and control one's life; and the procedure, the process, was it's own reward.
