No Longer Wishing For A Different Life

Diary entry from March 6th, 2024, post New Zealand/Australia bike tour/adventure.

I’ve spent a lot of my life wishing I had what others had.

Wishing my mom would take me to the mall to go shopping for cute and brand new outfits like the others mothers did with their daughters. Wishing I would get invited to eat ice cream with friends- the “cool” kids- on a Friday afternoon walking home from a week of school. I’ve wished I didn’t have to carry my heavy math, science and history textbooks as I walked to school between my parents homes, the load of their divorce weighing a few kilos on my shoulders. I’ve wished I didn’t have to work minimum wage jobs from middle school to the end of college because of a financially negligent father, realizing my adolescence was drifting away as my peers savored their sweet, carefree time. I’ve wished I had been more easy going in high school, not worried that if my grades weren’t high enough, then I wouldn’t get a scholarship to get into an excellent university to be guaranteed a good and successful life. I’ve wished I had enough money in college to go to Mardi Gras in New Orleans for spring break like all my rich classmates would each year. I’ve wished I had been chosen to be a sister of one of the “cool” sororities, to go to parties and be desired and have fun and let loose and be “cool”. I’ve wished that when I biked across Europe, I had been able to buy better quality panniers, so that when I hit that pothole in Italy, I didn’t swerve into oncoming traffic and quite literally see the chance of death fly past my eyes. I’ve wished I hadn’t let myself become desperate for attention from so many irrelevant, ugly, and neglectful men, men who my friends would meet and tell me “you’ll be embarrassed by this” or “I do not like him at all,” to which I ignored for short periods of time, then subsequently, yes, was embarrassed and hurt from. I’ve wished I didn’t push people away from me when they actually treat me well. I’ve wished that I was a minimalist and owned less “stuff”, but I’ve also wished to own a home with rooms full of grandiose artwork, a front yard and garden, and a garage full of bikes and any other outdoor gear I could dream of. I’ve wished to have had more time in New Zealand, allowing myself to pedal fewer miles each day and enjoy the scenery a bit more. I’ve wished that Baltimore had as many bike lanes and trams as Melbourne had. I’ve wished I had been born in a different body, in different country, to a different family, in a different social class, with different (aka, more) social programs to ensure the welfare of the entire country’s citizens.

To say the least, I’ve wished for most of my life to be not what it was.

As I am flying back home to the U.S, I realize that, slowly, I am no longer to be wishing to live a life that isn’t my own. 

Our lives are filled with chapters. Chapters so unique and magnificent, hardly comparable to anyone else’s. My overachieving-straight-A-no-fun-workaholic-anxious-stressed-out-student chapter lasted from the ages of 12 to 21. My slightly-overweight chapter began in elementary school and ended by middle school, followed by my anorexia chapter, persisting from the ages of 14-17, then binge eating chapter, from 17-19, and now intuitive eating/bored of eating chapter, from 20 and beyond. My microdosing shrooms chapter lasted for four months, my last semester of college in 2021. My “evil era” chapter started in mid 2022, and is finally coming to a close this March of 2024, synchronous with my arrival back home to the US. I can feel myself entering a new chapter of my life- one defined less by anxiety, jealousy, confusion, anger and fright, but with gratitude, hope, fullness, and perhaps a better sense of self. Perhaps this next chapter should be dubbed “making my dreams happen.”

“Biking is like a pilgrimage” is what a Warmshowers friend had told me in Manly Beach, the day before flying back home to Baltimore. Maybe that’s why I keep deciding to go touring, despite how excruciatingly challenging it can be at times. Perhaps I have a compulsive need for adventure. To search, desperately, for something I may be missing. A need to live life to the fullest, which apparently entails biking in brutal headwinds and rain, saddle sores and back pain, banal hours of pedaling and monotonous roadside meals. All of this balanced with the most magical moments in nature, cooking dinners with strangers, dancing in the streets, crying from the beauty of mountain side lake, finding friendship and love and kindness in every corner of the world you visit. 

I am happy with the person I am, the person I am becoming, the mind, body and spirit that I have worked so hard and long on to make happier and healthier. My life has been far from easy, far from perfect. But as I look back on my years, I understand that I was doing the best that I could, given my circumstances, knowledge, and support. While I would wish my hardships on no one, I cannot change what has happened- I can only move forward with the lessons I have learned to become the best version of myself possible.

I feel restored, rejuvenated, coming back to the U.S.. A new pages has turned, and I’m ready to see where the roads take me.