When does the trip start?
Did the trip start when I saved enough money to quit my job and buy the plane ticket? Could it be then, the trip started when I first got the job and put my first paycheck into savings. Or was it before that even, back when I was just a student, and I read about a faraway place and saw it in a film I watched for class. Was the trip born then?
Did the trip begin when I opened my laptop and started typing into google “best backpacks for 5 months”, “best vlog camera 2022”, “flights NYC to Ecuador”? Endless questions about routes, accommodations, and gear have filled the space once held for boys, parties, and drama. Did the trip begin when home started to feel more like a stepping stone than a destination?
Did the trip wait patiently for me to fall in love and think, “could this be my companion,” and then fall out of love and wonder “will I go alone”? Was it there in every friendship made, curiously asking “will we do this together”? Was the trip the companion all along?
About a month now before I leave for the airport, sitting in the bedroom I grew-up in, the overwhelming excitement of the trip infultrates my every thought as I realize, this is the trip. It’s already happening. It was born some long time ago in a moment I don’t remember but have always known and it’s been my companion for many years now. The trip has already changed me, it’s shaped my choices and guided my experiences so that I’d be ready when it came full throttle into the here-and-now.
Time is about to speed up because as the airport date gets closer the trip’s gravitational pull gets stronger, and that’s just basic physics. One month of provisioning and preparing will feel like a blip in the grand scheme of mountains, rivers, and glaciers, but without the month at home there is no trip therefore, this is the trip. This is the trip.
The best, and frankly, only way to start the trip is to recognize that it’s already started, jump onboard, and start living like it. And so, blog post number one; I’m writing you in my bed at home, my parents’ home in New York City. I’ve just moved back here from the Hamptons where I was working for the last three years. I’ve completed my last day of my first job out of college. I have 15 tabs open with various websites and blogs related to Patagonia and van rentals in Chile. It’s 1am but I’m not tired because I’m on the trip of a lifetime.