When Wanderlust Forces You To Leave The People You Love Behind

Have you ever noticed how the sunshine isn’t the same around the world? “Wanderlust” is a word that we glorify. It’s a term thrown around by individuals who aren’t courageous enough to go out and seek what they “lust” for. But it’s not the dreams you have that make you special, it’s what you do to chase them. Those who pursue those dreams of wanderlust are rewarded for their action, able to experience several types of sunshine.

Oftentimes though, the individual will find themselves missing whatever sunshine it is they left behind.

The desire to seek what the world has to offer has deep roots. Roots that grow somewhere deep in the soul. It’s a natural will to see the gigantic world and experience it. The branches that stem reach in different directions, but are still part of the same plant. One branch may be the one that sees a small town, a small way of thinking, and breathes the desire to be above that. Another branch may be a hope to find the person you feel you were meant to be, a person you literally have to seek out to find. A branch could simply be a wish to get away, go somewhere new and to avoid what it is you’re used to. It’s a force to be reckoned with that may never go away.

Then comes the day you choose to blossom from your branches. You trade in dull old streets for massive highways. Exchange two story suburban houses for skyscrapers. Dirty rivers for sparkling oceans, small hills for enormous mountains, a dull hum for a lilted symphony. Places you’ve known since you were born for places to see before you die. Maybe you left to experience it all, maybe to get away, or maybe you even left for reasons you can’t seem to describe to anyone, including yourself. For whatever your reasons, you’re out there experiencing and satiating your wanderlust…and there’s something missing.

You see, after you blossom, you will look back from time to time. You may find the wind pushing you back from your beginning from periodically. You don’t have to think when driving those old streets, you just instinctively know. Not much has changed, but in a way it all has. Most likely you find that it’s not the area that brought you back, but the people you grew with. People who you trust, people who know you, people who are just happy to see you. The ones you know who, no matter how far you go, will remember you and be happy to see you again.

There are amazing people everywhere, but you can search the world over and not find what you have with those who you started with. In my personal experience, my wanderlust tree bore all those branches. What finally sent me on my way was a desire to be a better person for the people I was leaving behind. I often look back and think of them and wonder why it is I left them.

Life is too short not to do whatever it is you love, but is it also too short to be away from those you love? When those two forces collide, it can a dilemma and a shame.

In the end, as you watch yourself grow, you need to remember who it is you’re growing for. Keep searching and growing, and keep touch with those you love. Start each morning with your favorite coffee cup from home and remember the people who are still back there, who still love you, whose paths are different but no less special. Then get back out there and see it all. Until that day you’re together again, just hope that their sunshine that day is as warm as yours.