Another Year on the Road

I accepted long ago, that multiple places will feel like home to me, which is why I move and travel often, seeking new fits or time in special places. Growing up, I always felt I was in the wrong place, and after college in a lovely place that wasn’t quite me either (Vancouver), I fled for the bright lights of shiny places (New York City, Los Angeles and London) that further educated and forged me into who I am today - both personally and professionally. I am forever grateful to the smaller cities that raised me and kept me grounded, but having both parents from - and therefore relatives in - other places, and an ancestral line from all over, I have to wonder if this kind of restlessness, or seeking home, was just a built in journey. Never feeling like home is anywhere, yet it is everywhere.

I started 2022 in London, a city I loved but a job I did not. When I decided to leave both, I took some time our to work remotely in Spain and Italy, before returning to Canada to see family, and then back to the USA in New York and California. In an ideal world, I could easily live between locations, but when you aren’t independently wealthy, there are certainly limits (though this has not stopped me from trying, or investigation expat paths part time in Europe) - and now I find myself weighing options on where home is now. Given all of the content I have watched online over the past few years, apparently many of you are asking yourself this too, and sometimes it comes down to proximity hierarchy - to family, to work, to affordability, or ultimately to your self. We are not all are built for frequent change or exploration, it can certainly be challenging and lonely, but for those of us who are, it’s a constant pull - searching for both roots and wings, craving both adventure and comfort.

As a traveler, I've always felt most at home when I'm exploring new places and experiencing new things. There's something about being in a new place, surrounded by unfamiliar sights, sounds, and cultures, that makes me feel alive and invigorated, always feeling like I'm learning and growing as a person when I'm on the road or in a new town. Despite this, I've never really felt like I could call just one place "home” and can look to my early influences from Indiana Jones to TinTin comics for driving me to keep moving.

“I wanted adventures. I wanted to go up the Nung river to the heart of darkness in Cambodia. I wanted to ride out into a desert on camelback, sand and dunes in every direction, eat whole roasted lamb with my fingers. I wanted to kick snow off my boots in a Mafiya nightclub in Russia. I wanted to play with automatic weapons in Phnom Penh, recapture the past in a small oyster village in France, step into a seedy neon-lit pulqueria in rural Mexico. I wanted to run roadblocks in the middle of the night, blowing past angry militia with a handful of hurled Marlboro packs, experience fear, excitement, wonder. I wanted kicks – the kind of melodramatic thrills and chills I’d yearned for since childhood, the kind of adventure I’d found as a little boy in the pages of my Tintin comic books. I wanted to see the world – and I wanted the world to be just like the movies” - Anthony Bourdain

I have since mellowed on the more adventurous excursions, but will forever wander given my drive to see, learn and experience for myself, even while I seek to find a few places to finally put roots in. Cheers 2022, you brought alignment and lessons, and I am ready to step into 2023, calm, confident, grateful and ready to continue creating a different path - wherever that may be. In the wise words of Lizzo: “You're going to see that person, but bitch, it's going to have to be you.”