Freedom

Freedom, that's what this has all been about. After my last entry, I rode my bicycle to Maine, lost my brakes on the biggest hill of my life, met amazing strangers. I spent 4 days on buses getting back to Montana and Jaden. We travelled for a month and a half, through Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and California, seeing mountains and canyons and sunsets that took my breath away, but I was always searching, always waiting for something. Jaden needed to go back to Seattle for his cat, but I didn't want to go back there, so he left me in Ashland, Oregon. I had no plans at that point and was sad to be alone. I spent two weeks sleeping in the park, and hanging around downtown. I wanted to leave town because I was freezing at night and the loneliness was eating me alive. I was afraid though. I'd never done any serious travelling all by myself, and I had only a couple dollars to spare.

One day, I woke up after a night with only a few hours sleep from being so cold, and walked into the health food store, determined to do something that would change my life for the better. I ran into some of my friends I'd met in Hawaii who were headed south and offered me a ride. I took it, and jumped into the complete unknown. After hanging out with my friends for a couple of days, they dropped me off in Redding,CA. I knew nothing about California, having only spent a total of less than two weeks there-I didn't even know what highway I was on or where it would take me. So I just stuck my thumb out and hoped for the best. I knew I wanted to head for the coast, and the people who picked me up advised me of some nice towns, but I didn't know where to go, so every ride I gave a different answer to where I was headed. Sometimes I just said I didn't know where I was going.

I felt stressed and like I had somehow fallen off the path that used to feel in alignment with my soul. I felt not sense of presence. I was running, at a speed I had never run before, and I knew I was going to start running into things which would hurt me, but I kept moving faster. I was so lost and scared and absolutely alone. I had many crazy adventures as I made my way down the California coast. I even ended up at a radical christian commune for two weeks, where I was expected to wear a bra and study the bible every minute I wasn't working. I met people who were very kind and helpful, and others who were as lost as I was.

Jaden made his way back South and we left the commune together and went to relax and rethink our plans in the desert. We spent a good amount of time in Borrego Springs, just passing time, trying to figure our lives out.

I left Jaden and went up North to try and make some money. I got in a bad situation, and after already being completely burnt out, and realizing that travelling wasn't what I expected it would be, I came back to Nova Scotia.

I realized that freedom was nothing like what I was living. Everyone thought it was, and from the outside I'm sure it looks like I'm free. It's true that there's nothing holding me back. If I want to go somewhere, I just go. But with nothing to hold me down, I feel like I'm just floating, without stability or friends or anything worth staying still for. I've spent so much time just sitting in towns alone, often cold and hungry, wondering what the hell I was doing. I always have to keep moving because I can't deal with how empty I feel. No matter how dangerous life becomes I always run at it. I have to or I feel I will go insane. I bottle up all the fear and sadness because I know if I brake down, there would be no one to help me and no safe place to stay.

So here I am, back where I started, yet everything feels different. It was only a couple weeks ago that I spent some time on a mountain alone, and knew that I wasn't able to keep living the way I was and pretending that I was free. I knew that I wasn't ready to stop, but I was ready to stop living in denial. I did a lot of things the past months that I'm not proud of. Lost in my own world of pain and anxiety I've hurt a lot of people, and I haven't had the room in me to care. There is so much sadness in me, and I have done everything short of taking my life to try and escape it. What I know about this life I've been given is that I didn't come here to be selfish. I was born to learn how to love, and the first step has to be self love. I don't know that it matters what I do with my outer life. I don't really know anything anymore. I'm realizing that pretty much everything I've ever known has been a lie. So how can I embrace this darkness and continue on my path? I don't know. I think opening myself to whatever I experience is going to be crucial in the coming months. I want to let myself feel everything that's within me to feel, I want to learn how to love and face the hatrid and pain which is sheilding me from the light.

It turns out that facing my outer fears accomplished nothing. I've lived in crazy and dangerous situations, and I pushed through my fears, but inside I'm just as scared. I think the time is coming for me to face the deepest fear within me, which is of myself.

Wanderlust

Decided to start a new blog for the next chapter of my adventures through life.  Since my last post on Fruitarian Freedom, I left Hawaii with my good friend Ewok, travelled across the US, stopping in California, Oregon, Washington, and then finally Montana, where the Rainbow Gathering was being held this year. Now I'm back in Nova Scotia, reflecting on how much everything has changed since I was in my jungle home in Kalapana.

Leaving my home in Hawaii was a leap of faith. Shortly after Jaden went back to Seattle I ran into my friend Quill, who brought me to Kona, taught me about living on the road, filling me with inspiration. For so long I had dreamed of living a life of freedom, wandering without fear, sleeping wherever I found myself at the end of the day, having faith everything would be ok. But I was so afraid, and I had put my bigger dreams in a box far away, believing I couldn't achieve them. Quill saw that and he told me to just get out there. So I did.

 I went into town one morning and didn't come home for 4 days. I slept by the ocean in Hilo, with Ewok, who had just walked into my life and had been on the road for 10 years. When I finally did make it back to my house I realized I was ready to leave it, for good this time. I was scared to death, but I knew the time was right. So I packed up a few belongings and left my house, without notice. 

I spent a few weeks on the other side of the island, checking out Hawi, and living on a beach in Kona, with lots of other travelers. It was like being shipwrecked on an island of our own. We just lived, passing time cooking food, talking, making music, as if we were waiting for a boat to bring us home, but there were no boats, and most of us didn't have homes to go back to, or even plans for the future. 

I left Hawaii with Ewok and we flew to California, where we froze our butts off from the temperature change. It was beautiful though, and we even got to sleep inside a redwood tree! We traveled without much of an itinerary for a couple months, selling jewelry along the way, sleeping in the woods, behind stores, wherever we happened to be.

We met up with Jaden before heading to the Rainbow Gathering and all drove there together. I had an amazing time there. I would elaborate more on it, but it was over a month ago that I left, and it feels very much in the past.

Not sure about what to do after the Gathering, I came home to NS to see my family, spending almost a week on buses, hitchhiking from Maine to New Brunswick. About a week ago I felt like it was time to leave again, but I wasn't sure of the best way to get back to the US. The idea came to me to ride my bike back to Maine. I told my family, but pretty much everyone was against it. As the days passed by it appealed to me more and more. I was nervous, but I had enough examples in my life now to see that it was usually worth it to do things which scared me. So I got my dad to help me rig up my cheap old walmart bike so that it could handle a 50 pound pack on the back, and I gathered my belongings so that I'd be ready to leave within the week.

Tomorrow morning I'm getting on a boat to New Brunswick with my bicycle. I'm extremely nervous and excited. Once I bike to Maine I'm getting on a bus back to Montana, where I plan to meet up with Jaden and explore Yellowstone in his van(if he gets one in time).

Back in Hawaii I was more than ready to settle in a house and start a family Now everything feels different. There's a part of me, which I had hushed and ignored before, which is growing stronger now, telling me not to stay still for too long. I listen to it now, and I keep going- where to, I have no idea.

I left my home looking for freedom, thinking that if I could just get out there and start each day somewhere new, that somehow I would find myself understanding life more. The stagnancy of waking up alone in the same place each day was driving me insane. I had pretty much everything I had been looking for for years, but I felt as empty as ever, if not more so.

After travelling for a short amount of time, I began to see that I was caught in a whirlwind of ego, of needing to escape. A lot of the time I was running in fear, seeing that no matter how far or how fast I went, the emptiness never went away. The cage surrounding me became stronger, even though there was nothing in my outer world holding me back anymore. I learned what I didn't want to learn, that freedom couldn't be had out there, not even a little bit. I knew that it was already mine, waiting for me, for whenever I was ready to embrace it, whether I was walking across the US or sitting in a jail somewhere. The deep realization of it left me wondering what the hell I was doing and I realized I had no idea. If I wanted to continue to let life live through me, I needed to keep travelling, wandering without a clue in my head as to why I needed to do it. So I've continued, unable to explain to people why I need to live this way since I have no clue myself. All I know is that the thought of settling down sends a wave of dread throughout my entire being and that for now, I must listen to my heart and keep walking blindly into the unknown.