Here’s To The Wild Wanderers Who Catch All The Flights…And All The Feelings

 

 

Here’s to all the guys and gals who stay wild, and love wildly too. The ones who understand that their open hearts are not a liability to their wanderlusting souls.

 

Here’s to the wild ones who know that distance doesn’t mean detachment. The ones who occasionally say, “I love my solitude, but I love you too, so you can be part of it.” The ones who will change their flights just for one more night.

 

Here’s to the adventurers who know that nothing can take away their freedom and so, finally, relax their jealous grip on it. The ones who love the taste of solo travel, and the scent of a warm bed. The ones who refuse to choose between the two.

 

To the wanderers who leave with heavy hearts but leave anyway, I’m right there with you.

 

To the wanderers who fly, and return, and fly again—your journey won’t be easy, but it will be rich.

 

Loving doesn’t make us weak; it makes us human. I am endlessly falling in love with people, mountains, cities, continents. I am endlessly leaving people, mountains, cities, continents. I have grown intimately acquainted with heartfelt goodbyes. I am equally familiar with exhilarating hellos.

 

There is no contradiction there, for me.

 

I have traveled solo for so long that my passion for freedom has mellowed. The taste of wind, sunlight, saltwater, and possibility no longer astounds me, because it has become my “normal.” I no longer need to proclaim my independence to the open skies, because it has become synonymous with my own self.

 

Freedom isn’t the exception; it is the rule. And so, when friends, lovers, family, and strangers join me for a leg of my journey, it is no longer the infringement it once seemed. They are welcome here.

 

Nowadays, I am at ease in my solitude, my skin, my unshakeable ability to go anywhere alone without fear.

 

I do not need to prove it by building walls around my heart. Not anymore.

 

And so I fly. And I love. And the wilding and the loving are not in opposition, but instead coexist within me.

 

I buy my one-way tickets for one, shoulder my backpack, and say goodbye, but I don’t pretend it’s easy. I feel it all—deeply. I love—deeply. I leave—freely enough.

I believe my freedom is all the more beautiful for those shadows of nostalgia at its edges.

So here’s to the open-hearted wanderers. The solo adventurers with romantic souls. The unfettered wild ones who still care, and deeply.

Here’s to the vagabonds like me—the ones who catch all the flights, and all the feelings—who carry every city and every person in their hearts, and still are light enough to fly.