I am on the tail end of my trip. I’m spending some time visiting a friend from college in Perth. Finally giving in to my persistent intuitive feeling, and my friend’s insistence, I am here to rest. The journey isn’t over, but it feels over, mostly because it feels like my adventuring has been put on a long pause.

I’ve always done tasks this way: work first, all of the work, then rest. I used to resist when, on mountain biking trips with my MTB club, someone would want to do a night ride as our second ride of the day…I rode (worked) earlier and was already resting. Why would I repeat the process? I had a subconscious rule that I felt was important to follow.

The other source of the feeling that the trip has ended is that I have some familiarity back. Australia isn’t very exotic in its culture. . I’m essentially in a laid-back America. When I studied abroad here about 14 years ago, I remember feeling like I was in a foreign land; accents, phrases, muesli, spiders were different. This time, “heaps” and “reckon” seem common, and I’ve hardly noticed. There was some child-like joy in it the first go around, years prior, that I’ve noticed is missing.

Maybe when you’re wrapped up in watching yourself all day, it is hard to see that things have shifted, but I feel like I haven’t changed very much compared to when I started the trip, objectively. I’m still stubborn about certain things and definitely filled with fears, on top of having a less quiet mind than when I started. However, I do feel different. There isn’t anything specific, but I can feel the distance between this version of me and the one who started the trip. We are definitely on two different timelines traveling in parallel. She isn’t that far away, but she isn’t here.

I looked back at some photos from before I took off on my own. Pictures I took in Portugal when I was with my parents. Some photos of me. I didn’t expect to feel…this soreness. I feel a sore longing to be her again. She was healthier, more fit, her mind was clearer and she wasn’t afraid. The reality of things hadn’t set in yet; she was just on a trip trying to survive her parents’ fear of her driving them around in a “foreign country.” It still felt like other family vacations. I feel grateful for that familiar start.

The soreness turned into an ache when I thought of how lucky that version of me is. She stands leaning on a stone wall of a medieval castle, scrunchie in hair (this version no longer owns that scrunchie, a 9 year old in France does), legs looking toned, and has infinite potentials shuffling around waiting for her to make a move. The universe holds tight for her to have any thought so it can transform the potential into a reality on her path. She doesn’t realize yet how unlimited she is, and she won’t for approximately 7 months and 7 days, but at least she’ll know it before the next adventure.

This version is so excited about the magic of everything. She thinks she is about to embark on a spiritual treasure hunt. She has no idea how that will actually manifest, but she feels the weight of its importance. She clings to the feeling of importance. No one can talk her out of what she believes, or so she thinks…sometimes when we let love in we forget ourselves for a time. At least she learned.

This version of me aches to be back there. A lump is forming in my throat. Maybe there is something left unsaid. I’ve thought many times of the first two weeks on my own and the feeling is completely different. I have warm feelings and cherish that time, but I’ve never longed to be back there. I guess in the end I truly am happy with where I am now, and I know there is more of “the first two weeks” in my future. But why such different feelings about the few days before I left for Porto?

Recently, I reread my first entry in the leather bound journal my friend gifted me before I left. I had written in the entry that I was excited to re-read it in 8 months and wondered how different I would be. Tears came as I read it and flew back to the memory of where I had been when I wrote it. I felt so different from then. I have looked at these photos from Portugal at certain increments during the trip, however. I’ve looked more often at them than the journal entry and still, this is the first time I can feel anything special about them at all; about the girl in the photos. Maybe it is a mystery for another day, or maybe it is just a sign that I have in fact grown.