Pre-travel Thoughts

I bought my ticket about 2 months before I was scheduled to leave. At first, I was exhilarated, but my departure was so distant that it did not yet seem real. This past week, it has finally sunk in that I am leaving. Since I graduated, I've been waiting for this moment, but now that it is rapidly approaching, I realize that I have come to enjoy the monotony of life here. I've become comfortable with my job - which I orginally took to save enough money to go travelling! - and I've made new amazing friends. I've also been able to just enjoy life in Montreal. At school, I was always so busy that I never had enough time to really experience the city and all that it has to offer. The last 6 months have given me exactly that opportunity. While my comfort with my life is new and interesting to me, it also makes me think that this is just the time to leave - before I get too comfortable!

I guess my apprehension about leaving is mostly because I have no return date, and no real plans beyond the first couple of months. So it feels like I am cutting almost all my ties in this city. A strange feeling that I am trying very hard to accept and let pass. The intense realization that I am leaving all this behind has changed how I see everything around me and how I experience every moment. This is something that I've forgotten, but that I remember feeling when I left Vancouver. I guess when you make a life for yourself in a new city, it's hard to leave it all behind.

My apprehension and doubts are however intersected with pure excitement and wonder at the unknown road before me. I am reading a great book that my sister lent me: Vagabonding by Rolf Potts. It is inspiring me and exciting me about my future as a vagabonder, but it is also grounding me, keeping me from romanticizing travel too much. I keep thinking of a Cat Stevens song, The Wind. I don't know what is in front of me, but I am as ready as I'll ever be to embrace it!

A day at the call center...

"Today I sat down at a computer and I picked my nose. I could see the reflection of my finger reaching deep into my nostril in the monitor. A co-worker tapped me on the shoulder to inform me of the new gossip of the day. Before he finished another co-worker yelled out to him. He turned around and in a sweeping motion, like the Karate Kid waxing on and waxing off, I wiped it on his right shoulder. I laughed to myself all day as I saw this co-worker socializing and discussing with other co-workers with the same piece of booger on his right shoulder. As he works, I see him focus on his job as I see the piece of booger hanging and shimmering in the fluorescent lighting of the call center. Does anyone notice? Will anyone find out? Will this affect his life forever? Will he get stares on his way home in the metro? Will that booger survive until tomorrow? Will it become one with its owner?"

As recounted to me by Marc Joyette

See?! This is why I need to get away!!!