An actual email...oh my

So...a significant blogging first occurred for me the other day...I received my first ever reader email!  Of course I tried to act all cool and nonchalant when replying instead of instantly sending a "wowohwowohwowohwow you actually emailed ME" style response.  But secretly I was so excited! Fan mail.  Yeah I am that cool.

By the way, if you are reading this... (you know who you are)... you totally made my day :)

But anyway there is a point to this asides from encouraging all you other dear readers to send me emails...who am I kidding of course that's what I want you to do...and you can find my email address riiiiiiiiight over here.

And... the point is that inside this exciting email, along with the expected questions about the van and the budget and the Master Plan, there was a question which really made me stop and think.

"What exactly are you looking for in your travels?"

This seems like a simple enough question, but it completely threw me because the second I read it, it hit me like a lightning bolt.  I do not know exactly what I am looking for.

I could tell you what my plan is, why I want to travel or where I would like to go.  But exactly what I am looking for?  I'm not sure.  Is it really that sensible to build as big a dream as mine into reality if I don't even know what I am looking for!  To leave my job, my home, my family, my career...for what?

Of course it is.  I know I am looking for something.  I used to jokingly tell an old friend of mine that there were only three possible answers to the questions that really mattered - beauty, love and magic.  And if the answer could not be boiled down to one of these key concepts, then the question wasn't worth asking.  Very bohemian.  Maybe I should get better at following my own advice.  I do know that I am looking for something to devote myself to, something which satisfies, something worthwhile.  

To be exact, I am looking for a life I can be proud to have lived.

Is it a person, is it a place, is it a job, is it a lifestyle?  Is it across the oceans, wrapped in the grandest of Hollywood cliches or the darkest of despairs?  I don't know.  

So to be even more exact, I also have no idea what I am looking for.

And perhaps knowing what to look for is not really necessary, all that matters is I know I have to look.  

After all, if you don't know where you're going..."Then it doesn't matter which way you go...", said the Cat.