To quote the great J.R.R. Tolkien, “Well, I’m back.” I just stuck my head out of my bedroom window to yell hello to Zidre, my upstairs neighbor, who was unloading her kids from the car after a day at the beach. In a mixture of English and Lithuanian, we talked about my cat, Sasha, and when she could come over to listen to music to use in her dance teaching. Yesterday my friend Nicole and I made Lithuanian saltibarscai (cold beet soup) together and took a walk to the Baltic.
I love Klaipeda, Lithuania. Really, really love Klaipeda.
In the past three weeks, I have been to six countries. In the past three months, I’ve been to eight. Six capitals. From the furthest western point in Europe – Cabo Finisterre in Spain - to a country on its eastern border – Ukraine.
Is it redundant to say I’m tired of traveling? It’s strange to me how nearly ambivalent I’m feeling about all the places I’ve been. (Which isn’t to say I don’t have stories, coming below). I have loved to travel my entire life, from the moment I took my first family road trip as a five-year-old. So it's strange to me now that I didn’t find this past trip to be the fulfilling adventure that I usually enjoy so much. It just felt like a lot of time sitting in cafés, drinking identical coffees, visiting grand empty cathedrals, learning how to pronounce thank you in gallego and French and Swedish and Estonian and Latvian, with some Russian thrown in when necessary. It’s tempting to think, is this it?
Am I over my wanderlust phase? (Doubtful, though I might be totally over my enthusiasm for Western European cities). I guess I’m just coming to see that what used to feel adventurous and exciting is pretty normal for me now. And it’s making me hungry for a different kind of adventure. I can’t put my finger on it exactly, but I want new types of challenges, new risks.
The risk of letting God have everything.
The risk of learning how to love and serve people.
The challenge of allowing God to show me new things when I want to rehash past lessons.
The risk of really knowing people and caring about them, and letting them know me.
I’m not ungrateful for the experiences I’ve been blessed to have, and what meant most to me these past weeks were the genuine conversations, honest conversations, that I was able to have with Kristen and with Annie. And I DID have fun, and took tons of great pictures. Maybe I’m just experiencing post-trip let-down, but I think I am just world-weary. It doesn’t seem to hold anything new or undiscovered, and I don’t know what to do with that feeling.
