I’m home after two weeks of travel. Every place I visited, I’ve thought, “I could live here.”
My husband and I have had this discussion: If we could just pull up stakes and move, where would we go? We go through the pros and cons of the places we know, and places we imagine. But we never come to any conclusions.
This morning I walked into the coffee shop and saw the regulars.
In walks a woman who gets coffee at the same time I do. She’s an engaging person, thoughtful and friendly, the kind of person you want to talk to, to be around. She’s a doctor of geriatrics at USC. Has four grown children. We exchange the usual “how’s it going?” pleasantries.
Today, she tells me, is her last day at work. She does not say retire. “I am allergic to that word,” she says.
“Oh my gosh!” I say. I’m shocked, the thought of her doing something other than what she does hadn’t crossed my mind. “What are you going to do now?”
“We’re going to lease, or maybe sell the house; go to Europe for a year,” she says. “We’re just going to travel and see what feels right. That’s the plan, if it doesn’t work, we’ll adjust.”
What feels right.
Sounds like the journey my children are on. Beginning their lives, separating from their childhood, they are looking to make homes of their creation, their place to be in the world, to engage and be engaged by the world. They are looking for what feels right.
Who’s to say this is just a journey for the beginning. My friend doesn’t see it this way.
Where or what home might be should not be a fixed place or idea. From time to time, we should ask ourselves, what feels right.
Perhaps it’s the travel.
Perhaps it’s the journey I see others taking.
Possibilities are there. They’ve always been there. It’s just now, perhaps, it’s time to ask what feels right.
Thanks to Two Writing Teachers for Slice of Life Tuesdays. Read more slices and consider sharing one of your own here.
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