Why we travel

Recently, as my impending departure draws ever closer, the part of me which doubts has been screaming ever louder "Why are we doing this?!?"  Not because I do not want to, but because it is too huge a commitment to make without knowing why I am doing it.

It is so easy to dismiss this query with an entire eulogy about how beautiful the world is, about the places I'll go, the people I'll meet, the experiences I'll have and even the possibilities for me to make some small difference in this world.  But these are merely reasons why travel is rewarding, none of them are the actual reason why I want to, need to, travel.

It would be equally easy to propose that I am aiming to find happiness, or a purpose in life, or some other personal attainment.  But these are merely side effects of the travelling process, none of them are the reason why I must travel either.   

And then on my trawling through the internet one day, I found a man called Pico Iyer, and his piece entitled "Why we travel".  Go, read it.  It is worth the time.  Better to go and read that piece than finish reading this blog post!

The man, coincidentally writes with a genius like nothing (literally nothing) I have ever read.  You can read more of his fabulous work here. 

Now this piece is 12 years old, and yes, some of it does perhaps feel slightly dated, and some of it is perhaps so personal to Iyer that it will not be particularly universal.  But the core message resonates clearly through the piece and makes perfect sense to me.

I have long believed that love is the driving force behind those aspects of life which make us human, the things that take us mentally, physically and existentially beyond the constraints of our evolution.  This is not some fluffy naive philosophy, I am referring to love as a driving force for conflict, hate and greed as much as I am to a force behind happiness, selflessness and relationships.  But good or bad, love is ultimately the reason why, or at least the reason for our conscious mind.

So why travel?  Because to travel is to love.  To love in a way which a static life could never fully elicit from me.

As Iyer says...

"And if travel is like love, it is, in the end, mostly because it’s a heightened state of awareness, in which we are mindful, receptive, undimmed by familiarity and ready to be transformed. That is why the best trips, like the best love affairs, never really end."

To match the inferno of life

Source

Collision

Why is it so easy for me to learn from experience, yet so hard to let go of the past?

It is irrational to assume that the behavioural outcome will be the same from different people who happen to find themselves in a similar situation.  I know this, I have studied this, I understand this.  And yet I cannot help but feel...

...the pain of betrayal so sharply, as if the expected outcome has already occurred this time around.

...the paralysing grief from the dreading of broken rules, that reminds me how easily that grief can tear the very fibres of my being apart.  Rules that haven't even been established this time, that aren't even there to be broken.  Rules that I don't ever want to make again.

...the anger at the thought that yet again I risk it being one rule for me, and another rule for him.

...the hatred of myself for feeling pain, sadness and anger directed at someone based on nothing they have done, but simply because I have learnt from something that somebody else did.

...the disappointment that the scars of the past are able to mark the present, long after the old injury is forgiven and forgotten.

...the fear.  Usually when I identify the source of my mental discomfort I feel satisfied that I am then in a position to address it, but with this I am not so sure.

For when past and present worlds collide, who can survive?

What if I can't?

www.postsecret.com

Change does not suit me.  This is probably my biggest character flaw, because change is, after all, the only constant.  I try to be one step ahead of my inability to handle change, to push myself into experiencing it in full, even when I would rather turn away.  I am all too aware that my future plan involves a lifetime of change, the hardest part of which will be the impact it has on my relationships with those around me.

As I wrote in August last year:

"Yes it will be heartbreaking, yes it will leave me feeling numb over and over and over again, but this is the life I choose."

But honestly, right now, that scares me.  What if I can't handle the change?  What if I can't stand letting go once, never mind endlessly letting go?  What if it stops me from reaching out to others?  What if it just isn't worth it?

I may not be able to answer all my questions, but I do know it is worth it.  Worth it a hundred thousand times over, and I know why.  But I am still terrified.

And so I cling to the moment, to the here and now.  The ever-present reminder of how finite every moment with those around me is grounds me in the enjoyment and full participation in the present.

Perhaps that is actually the gift which makes the fear and the pain worthwhile, not the lifestyle or the travel or the people or the places.  The reminder that nothing is forever transforms the present into everything. 

Sweet hypocrisy

I have made no secret to myself of the fact that in my search for love I desire a little more freedom and a little less limitation than perhaps my culture prescribes that I should have.

I believed in my desires.  I did the research, I did the maths, I theorised about the morality and the logistics and the emotions.

And while it all seemed so simple when I considered how I would react to my man's desire for his own freedoms, for his own limitless love,  I never really reflected on how I would react to my own.

So I was surprised by the fact that in the cold light of day, what my emotional self wanted was far from the conclusions of my rationalising and theories.  Freedom?  Sickening.  A love without boundaries?  Terrifying.

Is it possible that just because I felt mentally ready to leap away from the cultural preconceptions of what love should be, that didn't mean this could be achieved in any other way than by taking tiny baby steps?

Maybe.

Is it possible that I don't need a relationship without boundaries, I just need the freedom to make my choices for myself?

Perhaps.

Is it possible that all my theories are wrong, and that I actually have no idea what I really want?

Probably.

Is it possible that all the theories in the world cannot come close to  providing me with the understanding I need to face relationships with conviction and compassion, and it is only through experience that I can come close to finding what really works?

Definitely.

But what I have learnt is that although relationship theories can be made alone, they must be applied with someone else.  And only through application can either person know what themselves or the other person truly feels.

As you are

Sally on Helvellyn admiring the view...nothing to do with this post but she is super cute anyway!

I seem to be very preoccupied with boundaries in relationships currently.  I have written before about how much I desire a love without limits, but this is a concept which goes so much further than the topic of fidelity I wrote about previously.

Having a love without limits is one thing, but what does it mean to actually practice loving without limits?

So many relationships and so much of our cultural repertoire is based around the idea of moulding, shaping and changing our partners to better fit our ideal image of how they should look, feel and behave. And if we can't or won't change them, we are told we must "compromise" or even accept our partner's "flaws".

And yet, what gives me the right to change someone else, even if I believe it is for the better?  Why does love have to be based on compromise, an endless reduction in the happiness of both parties?  Who am I to classify a person's personality traits as flaws simply because I do not like them?

Accepting someone as they are is one thing, but what does it actually mean to believe that you do not have to convince the right man to do the right thing?

Love should not be about limiting the other person.

Love should be an enabler.

Love should be about enabling them to be entirely themselves, the best, happiest and most comfortable version of themselves.  And not the best version of themselves as I see it, but as they themselves want to be.

Flaws?  There are no flaws, just another complete person to be loved as they are.  No limits.

Compromise?  There is no compromise if there is no change to be made, if the other person is allowed to simply be as they are.  No limits.

No limits.  Just love. 

I do, I do, I do!

http://2people1life.com/blog/http:/2people1life.com/hawaiian-wedding-hilton-waikoloa-village/

I have found a new favourite blog, it encompasses travel, campervans and oh so much romance...*massive drum roll*...

2people1life.com

It is the story of one couple (and one campervan...of course!) and their journey around the world in search of the perfect wedding venue.

Why not just pick a destination wedding venue from a glossy brochure in the comfort of their English living room...far too unromantic.  Why not pick a favourite destination from their past or future travel list...far too easy.  These two adventurers are actually travelling the world searching for their perfect wedding destination.  And not only are they searching for the perfect wedding destination, they are practicing having the perfect wedding!  30 times! 30 practice weddings to find the perfect place to take all their family and friends back to for the last wedding of all.

What a guy.  What a girl.  What a story.  I'm not sure I have ever encountered a more romantic tale in my life.

Time changes everything

So this is the last of my expansions on my "What I've learnt about love" post.  Following my elaboration on what I meant when I referred to the light and the dark sides of love I also felt like further explanation was required when I said I had learnt that... "Time changes everything.  Don't look for that which is eternal, but seek that which will be continuously renewed".

In that perfect, life like the movies, so-called reality that I was encultured into striving for, dreaming about and believing in, I met the concept of the perfect relationship.  The perfect marriage.  A perfection that lies in stability, constancy and unchanging love.  Not only does marriage last forever, but the adventure ends when the couple gets married.  Curtain closed, happily-ever-after.

And yet this conflicted with so much else that I desired and so much else that I knew.  People thrive on change and challenges.  The idea of marriage is also associated with concepts such as staleness, boredom and unwanted ties.  Even the very phrase "settle down" carries such a negative connotation.

It's as if I were being told to strive for something I didn't even want.  Or something I knew did not exist.

Because I also knew that time changes everything.  We are told that time heals all, I had seen that time changes our lives, our bodies, our thoughts and who we are.  Sometimes I didn't particularly like this, and sometimes I recognised it as the unstoppable driving force behind my existence, but I knew it nevertheless.

So what I have learnt is that I should not view relationships as static, but embrace them as changing.  This doesn't mean that I can't be with one guy for the rest of my life, it doesn't mean I can't be married.  But it does mean that instead of looking for something which is immovable against the forces of time, I should be looking for something which is continuously renewed.

Because time changes everything.  A love which is static will be broken as time washes over it.  Try to prevent changes, or ignore them, and chances are those changes will sweep two people in opposite directions.  But aim for change, focus on renewal and even if I have no interest in a love which lasts a lifetime, I am certain that I will find so much more that is worthy of my love.

The right man

Cleavage is one of the blogs I read where I avidly pounce on every new post as soon as it appears.  Kelly's content is great, but what grabs my attention is the way it shines through her prose just how much she lives, breathes and loves writing.  I aspire to write as candidly and passionately as she does.

Anyway my trail through her archives the other day led me to this "Ahhh moment"...

"You don’t have to convince the right man to do the right thing."

Kelly Diels

It stopped me in my tracks, hit me like a freight train, [insert any other suitably overused and meaningless metaphor of your choice]. 

I do this all the time.  All the time.  I could not count how many times I think, write, speak and act in a way which is designed to persuade, cajole, induce and convince.

Now there is no escaping that sometimes in this life, we have to persuade people.  Sometimes you have no choice but to persuade the wrong person into doing the right thing.

But it is a terrible habit to automatically assume persuasion is necessary.  Give people space to be the right man.  And in your relationships - well if they aren't the right man, what on earth are you doing there anyway?  

This is not an excuse to expect people to be psychic and always know what the right thing is without you telling them. It's ok to tell people what you need, just don't assume they need to be persuaded in order for them to give it to you. 

For me this is a naked truth, it's a game changer.  I simply had to "write it down big".  It's up there with "treat others as you would like to be treated" and "he's just not that into you".

It is pointless for me to say any more.  Kelly says it better.  You should go and read her article in full...here.

The light and the dark

In my previous post I wrote about the things I had learnt about love in my few years on this planet so far, but as I selected those things I realised that there were several I was unable to fully explain in the constrained structure of a list.  Some of them I had written longer posts on previously, so I didn't mind if the repeated rendition of them was incomplete, but it really irritated me that I couldn't fully explain the ones I had not directly addressed before.

So here I am, explaining myself.

I said that I have learnt that... "the pleasure is worth the pain, although the light and the dark are two sides of the same coin...one cannot be had without the other.  But never love less to protect yourself from heartache, love more to risk it all for the joy."

As I read back through my posts on love, I can see that this reconciliation of the light and the dark is something I have touched on again and again, without ever really stating it that clearly.

To put it simply, I believe that the pain that we so often experience through love, be that love for a child, a friend or a lover, is neither avoidable nor unwanted.  It is part of love, and the more we love, the more it hurts.  It is so easy to turn away from the negative emotion as the pain builds to the point of heartbreak, but in doing this we are also turning away from the flip side of the coin, the intensifying, building, purifying love.

So much love is lost because people are scared of getting hurt.

My dog Floss was put to sleep a week ago, I spent the entire weekend before she died in her company.  Most of it I spent crying, not wailing and sobbing, just gently overflowing with tears.  And yes, it was painful.  I was, and still am, sad that her life was at an end.  But that weekend, the strongest emotion I felt was love.  My eyes were overflowing with tears not because I didn't want her to die, but because I loved her while she lived.

There is nothing to be gained from grieving over a separation, a loss.  Grieve over the living flesh, be open to the pain that love brings as it unifies and you may just learn something.

“I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.”

Mother Teresa

What I've learnt about love

Apparently it's Valentines Day, and the done thing is to think incessantly about love.  Why fight the inevitable...here is the tip of the vast iceberg of facts (perhaps) that I have learnt about love.

1. It is possible to cry so much that you give yourself two black eyes.
2. There are as many lovers, loves and relationship possibilities as there are stars in the sky.  Build a love without limits. 
3. The pleasure is worth the pain, although the light and the dark are two sides of the same coin...one cannot be had without the other.  But never love less to protect yourself from heartache, love more to risk it all for the joy. 
4. Time changes everything.  Don't look for that which is eternal, but seek that which will be continuously renewed.
5. I will forever know nothing about love. 

"let it be your aim always to love more than the other"

Nietsche

The things no-one else notices

I have parts of my body which I think are beautiful, parts which other people do not notice.  And I believe that while most of the world does not notice these things, someone who truly loves me would notice them every single day.  I'm not sure if everyone has body parts they feel this way about, but I'd like to think so.

Tell me I have beautiful eyes, that you love my smile, or that my bum is sexy...and I might be yours for the day.  

You see a pretty girl, and that's a compliment I am happy to receive.

But tell me how beautiful my hands are, how you love the way my hair glows like fire in the evening sun or that the angles my hip bones make from under my skin drive you wild with desire...and I might just be yours for life.  

You see Anna, you see me.

Love without limits

 
We seem to live in a culture which is fixated on rules.  Happiness is x, family is y, wealth is this, love is that.  Rules are just fine, I have no problem with them.  But what about when they don't quite relate to the concept they are supposed to be explaining?

Love and relationships seem to be particularly susceptible to these misguided ideals.  It's almost as if we think the more rules we wrap love in, the more controllable it is, the more easily we can possess it.

So we create a series of increasingly elaborate hoops for ourselves and our partners to jump through in order to prove that love is there.  Like we are trying to catch ourselves out, trying to prove the absence of love.  Rules and rituals for special occasions, social events, physical contact.  None of these rules are inherently wrong, most of the things they demand of us are part of many healthy loving relationships.  But in isolation, the presence of each one does not equal love, nor does their absence equal the loss of love.

So why, when we can happily accept flexibility in certain rules, are we so inflexible in others?

Like fidelity.

Sex does not equal love.  One-night stands and the sex industry exists, regardless of what we may think of it.  Sexual fidelity does not equal love.  We all know that, we have all seen loveless yet faithful marriages.  So why then must love equal sexual fidelity?

Forcing such a rule limits the value of sex.  I am not about to start discussing the merits of particular relationship choices, mainly because I think it is incredibly difficult to espouse one relationship style without denying others.  For those who wish to expand the cultural norm of monogamous relationships, promoting polygamy to the point of denying the value of mongamy seems quite counter-intuitive.

So yes, fidelity may limit the value of sex.  That is sad. 

But what is heart-breaking is that fidelity may limit love.  Regardless of whether you want to sleep with 1 or 1000 people or whether you are faithful or not.  Positioning fidelity as the core component of love limits what love can be.

Because love is not sex.  Love is not fidelity.  Love is love, why must it be anything else in order to exist?

This theory may feel logically acceptable, but yet we are still so quick to deny love when fidelity is absent.  

I struggle to align my rationality with my encultured emotional response.  I want an open relationship, I want to learn to love without limits.  And yet... I feel jealousy at the slightest suggestion of sharing those I do not even love.  

This culture runs through my veins and binds my hands in more ways and with more strength than I like to admit. 

Missing you

How long can you miss someone for before the person you miss disappears?

How many years does it take before the person you miss has changed so much that they are no longer who you miss any more?

How long does it take for the bad moments to be erased from memory, and the good moments to be changed into perfect ones?

For the memories you hold so dear to change and distort until who you are missing is not even the person they once were?

 

I'm not the kind of girl who looks at a horse and immediately sees a unicorn... but every day I wait for you.  Every day I miss you.  How long does it take before the unicorn is all that is left in view?

How to define Love

Deep in the recesses of my past, a boy once told me that he loved me.  And what was my response?

"You are not in love with me. Either that or we have very different definitions of what it means to be in love..."

This answer still haunts me.  I criticised someone for having a different perspective to me.  Not only this, but I was criticising them without even knowing how to define love myself.

So in my typical "lets overanalyse every single little thing" fashion, I have been working for some time on how to define love.

The dictionary tells us that love is

"A strong feeling of affection and sexual attraction for someone."

This doesn't even come close to defining how I see love.  I need a definition which includes friendship, lust, intimacy and trust, and yet isn't based solely on any of them.  A definition which spans time and space without excluding any type of relationship.  A definition which reflects that the desire for love is independent from the other person, yet utterly dependent on them for its fulfillment. And this is my conclusion...

Love is when the desire to both know and be known by the other person is so all-consuming that nothing less than the rest of a lifetime is sufficient to satisfy.

The difference between true love and other kinds of love is then easy to see.  

For example, the love of a parent for a child is based on the desire for the parent to know the child but being known by them to the same extent is not necessary for satisfaction.  Love which is based on lust is satisfied in far less than a lifetime.  Love for a friend is not so consumptive that it requires intimacy to the same intensity in order to satisfy.

I am happy with my definition of love, but I have a suspicion that there may be as many definitions of love as there are relationships.  Or worse still, as many definitions as there are lovers.

Which means my definition is only correct for me, for how I love, for how I want to be loved.  It is after all my definition.

What if real love is the ability to give someone that which they need most of all while retaining the capacity to receive that which you yourself desire?

No wonder it gets so complicated.  All I know is that I should never deny someone else's experience of love again, regardless of whether or not it matches my own.  

Grandad...you were right

It is almost one year since my Grandad died.  I still hear his voice.

Some of my main memories of him from when I was younger involve his, as I perceived them, somewhat ridiculous eccentricities.  This was a man who used to write dates on cheques like this...

Friday 28th October 2011 A.D.

Seriously.  "A.D." !!! Like the bank cashier might look at his cheque and think..."Hmm, I wonder if this cheque is from over 2000 years ago, how can I possibly tell if it doesn't say A.D. or B.C. on it?" 

He was also an epic complainer.  I remember him sitting at the living room table, writing letters of complaint on his big old typewriter.  I don't know who they were to, anyone who would listen I suspect.  He taught me how to use the typewriter, I still love the romance of even the thought of the clicking letters and the ink blots.  So much beauty is lost in the functionality of modern technology.

If I ever asked him what the letters were about, he would launch into some huge rambling explanation about the topic, in far too much depth for my young mind to understand.  My Mum would roll her eyes and try and make him stop.  One of the things he used to complain about most was the Euro.  There was debate about whether or not the UK should join the Euro, and he was passionately against it.

He would stick anti-Euro stickers on every letter he posted.  It wouldn't surprise me if he stuck quite a few on me!  At the time, I didn't understand.  I thought "Why would governments suggest something that wasn't for the best?".  I was young.  I was naive.

Now I see he was right.  Eccentric maybe, but right.  At least on that one issue.  He taught me to always stand up for what you believe in, even when you feel like no-one else is on your side.  Even when your input is almost certainly irrelevant.  Even if you may be wrong.  You, and only you, have to be able to live with yourself.

Thank you Grandad.

I'm never writing "A.D." on a cheque though....

The Invitation

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are.

I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon...
I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true.
I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself.

If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day.
And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know, or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

By Oriah © Mountain Dreaming,
from the book The Invitation published by HarperONE, San Francisco, 1999 All rights reserved 

It's not often that I read something on the internet and don't conclude I would need to mentally re-write sections  in order for to me feel as if it fits me.  Maybe I am just tired.  The exam is done. It went well, but I feel kind of shell-shocked. Crazy right...

Your face

Last year I lost someone who meant a lot to me.  I feel as if I am beginning to let him go, but ever since I have started to feel this way, I have started to see him in everyone around me.

I see his features in the faces of those around me.  Hear his voice in the tones of others.  Find his mannerisms in the behaviours of others.

This never used to happen, it only began when I started to let go of the memory, the relationship, the past.

Is it that although my conscious mind has begun to feel like letting go is ok, subconsciously I am so unready for this that I am triggering these reminders to prevent myself from taking this step?

 

Or is it that in letting go I am giving myself the space to find the things that were vital to me in that relationship in other people?  That I have taken what I needed?

I honestly don't know.  All I know is, I see your face, and it hurts me. 

Remember last time

"You shouldn't get involved in that.  Remember last time."

Those words are from my mother, and they cut me to the bone. 

To me, the "last time" she was referring to wasn't a situation I regretted, wasn't an action I viewed as a failure, wasn't a decision I felt I got wrong.  It hurt that the woman whose opinion matters most on me looks at part of my life as failures, especially when I dont share the same view.

To me, the "last time" was in fact, entirely different from "this time". It left me feeling lost that someone I am so close to still cannot see the world through my eyes.

And even if "this time" were the same as "last time", it hurt that someone I regard as my best friend doesn't trust my intelligence to not make the same mistake twice.

10 years ago, that comment would have sent me into a screaming rage.  5 years ago it would have turned me into a depressed ball of misery.  1 year ago, that comment would have left me feeling compelled to debate the point until she shared (or at least pretended to share) my point of view.  But today, I just let the comment pass.  Why?

Sure, I felt the pain, the shock, the betrayal of trust.  But not the need to react.  I would say I have learnt that sometimes the health of the relationship is worth much more than the health of my ego, more than my desire to express my opinion, more than the need for understanding.  So much more.

And beyond this insult, this relationship, this reaction, I am rapidly learning that the further away I take my life choices from the choices that the majority of people make, the more often I am going to get reactions like this.  And you know what?  That's ok.  Just because I may not share someone's opinion, doesn't mean they are not entitled to it.  And it doesn't mean their opinions, views or choices are not equally valid, even if that might hurt me.   

But it doesn't have to define me either, and it certainly doesn't have to prevent me from acting out of love.

Interestingly, this theme of isolation in life seems to be running wild at the moment, from my post on relationships, to Tynan's awesome post on lifestyle and Sebastian's post on understanding.

One eye on the horizon

Over the past few weeks I have come to recognise a flaw in my thinking, and I have been attempting to rationalise this so I can tackle and resolve it (yes this what a Psychology degree does to you!).

My current travel plan is based on me leaving the country in 16 months time, potentially forever.  So with regards to relationships, my thinking for quite a while has been along the lines of "Oh I cant do that right now because Im leaving soon".  

Partly because I didnt want to be tempted to stay, partly because I didnt want to get hurt or hurt anyone by leaving, partly because it seemed the right choice to make.

And yet...and yet...the life I am choosing is a life of constant change, a life of perpetual motion.  I will always be "leaving soon".  And while I am genuinely happy to be on my own right now, I definitely would one day like to find a man who I want to spend the rest of my life with.  Someone who shares my desire for travel, not someone who tags along because it is what I want.  Someone who sees every horizon as a challenge.

I know the chances of me finding this man right here in Cumbria are very low.  I know that I am far more likely to find him when I am moving in circles of people who travel, wanderers, nomads, adventurers.  This certainty that my man is not right where I am now is another reason why I havent really considered relationships as an option currently.

But realistically, staying single for however many years it takes to meet Mr Nomad because I will be "leaving soon" is not the clever option.

1. It means I will miss out on so many amazing, intense (and yes heartbreaking) experiences.  I am choosing to travel because I want to experience more, not less.
2. It means I will miss out on so much love and friendship.  I love to love people.  I believe that loving for love's sake is one of the best things about being human.  Love is never wrong. 
3.  If I always have the "I cant" frame of mind, there is every chance that I will walk right on by Mr Nomad without even noticing he is there.
4. If I spend years and years alone, the chances are that even if I do have the good sense to notice Mr Nomad, I wont be able to make the relationship work.  Like everything else in life, we learn from experience.  And as we get older, the things we arent involved in get more challenging to us.

This whole issue applies to family and friendship too, and the same answers apply.  Just because a relationship can only be transient, doesnt mean it has to be meaningless.  In fact, to survive the loneliness of long-term travel, it is all the more important that the temporary connections we make with family, friends and lovers are filled to overflowing with meaning.

I am only too aware of how challenging I will find it to build relationships in a way which is completely meaningful at the time, but also retain the ability to let go of them without losing myself.  I fall in love hard, fast and totally.  I am the faithful puppy-dog and I find it oh so incredibly difficult to let anything or anyone I love go.  

But now I have identified this shift in how I need to think about things, I can work on it.  If Im honest, it terrifies me.  But I will work on it, I will practice.  I will practice loving my friends, my family and others with so much passion and depth, not holding back because "Im leaving soon".  Not loving in spite of the imminent departure, but because of it.  This life is a series of moments that fly past us, nothing is permanent.  To live in the present means to love in the present.  I hope that this attitude is the best way to frame how I relate to others to maximise my ability to one day form a relationship that will span many many moments.

Yes it will be heartbreaking, yes it will leave me feeling numb over and over and over again, but this is the life I choose.