The Urge to Travel

I don't know what percentage of the population feels the need to travel.  Perhaps the desire outweighs the actual activity.  For myself, I have conflicting push-pull inclinations concerning travel.  I feel the urge and at the same time I fret over the many troubles, roadblocks, expenses, and possible horrible things that could happen en route.  Astrologically, I'm supposed to love travel, feel freest and most 'authentic' (ha! see yesterday's post) when I'm traveling, and have a good deal of wanderlust.  But my chart has influences that also make me want to be a homebody, keep my feet on terra firma and not take chances.  I'm not a big risk taker and there is nothing riskier than stepping outside your circle of comfort to take to the wide open road.  But, I've read, this is the great value of travel.  Pushing your buttons so that your comfort level is jostled, your sleep is disturbed, your tummy is tested, and your senses are hightened. Traveling to the unknown, dealing with new experiences--figuring out how,when, where; trying to make yourself understood, sometimes to no avail; grabbing sometimes dicey food and drink; missing connections, getting stranded, losing your way.  These are all ways of stepping outside your comfort zone and seeing just who you really are.  The old saying of how to test a potentital husband--watch him untangle a string of Christmas lights, discipline a puppy, and balance a check book could be amended to read:  watch to see how he handles the stress of travel.  (This test would apply to the female, also)

So the upcoming trip will be a revelation in some ways, of how I (and my hubby) handle the stresses of travel, and how much my comfort zone has been made smaller, narrower, and less flexible with age.  It's one thing to lose your way when you are eighteen and feel pretty darn good and very invulnerable--use a rock for a pillow?  No problem!  It's another thing entirely when you are in your 60's and the body doesn't take well to loss of sleep, digestive upsets and the like. I'm not looking forward to this thrust outside the comfort zone! 

But will it be "good for me"?  I guess it all depends on my attitude.  Life being 90% how you take it...if that's true then keeping an optomistic attitude, expecting good surprises to outnumber the bad, and dealing with people and situations with an open heart is the best insurance that the experience as a whole will be positive, valuable, insightful, and fun.  I've been thinking about it a lot lately, and hope that I'm right.