Most anyone who knows me knows that I love to travel. I always have, really. I can remember being a kid and getting so excited when my parents would tell us we were taking a trip. I loved everything about it—airplanes, airports, long car rides, making checklists and packing my suitcase, going to the library to pick out books for the trip… I’ve always loved going to places I’ve never been, and I’ve come to realize that getting to the place that I’m going is just as much a part of the trip as what takes place after I get there.
When I think back on family vacations, some of my most vivid memories are from those long hours with the six of us in our white suburban. Counting 18-wheelers. Trying to find a license place from every state. Listening to Louis L’amour books on tape. Stopping at Cracker Barrel for lunch. Buying giant jawbreakers at Cracker Barrel and racing to see who could get to the middle first, licking them until our tongues bled. Seeing who could hold their breath all the way through long tunnels, though I’m pretty sure we all cheated. Listening to mom read the Chronicles of Narnia out loud while Dad drove. The four of us sleeping in a pile in the back seat. It’s often the journey itself that makes the trip what it is, and I always try to keep myself from grumbling about 9-hour flights, long layovers in Amsterdam, hot, slow train rides, and waking up at 4 a.m. to catch an 8 a.m. flight out of Memphis.
Sometimes I forget that life is a journey, too. It’s like I’m going somewhere I haven’t been before. This isn’t my home—I’m on my way there now, and what happens while I’m on my way to where I’m going is just as important as what happens when I get there. Every day I wake up is another step in the direction of my eternal destination, another mile along the road of my journey home. I must never view life as being mundane, dull or ordinary. To me, there is nothing ordinary about going somewhere I’ve never been, and that’s what life is, really. Every day is just getting me closer to where I’m going.
For some reason, I’ve always heard the phrase “going home” used at funerals to talk about dying. True, I suppose dying is the final act of “going home,” but in reality, that’s what life is, and that’s what I’m doing right now. I’m just on my way home right now, travelling to a place I’ve never been.
