There was a time in my life when I traveled a lot. In 1978, which I consider the great year of wanderlust, I traveled to both the coasts, the East by car and airplane, the West coast by railroad. It was a time in which I was trying to define who I was and what I was about and I saw traveling by myself, for the most part, as a means to try out different parts of myself on different places and people, or so I think I thought. The truth of the matter was that instead of running toward myself, I was, in fact, running away from myself and this is what I now am calling my shadow in wanderlust.
Living a place like Santa Fe, I have friends who travel in and out of the US. Each time I have heard about their traveling, I have found myself bemoaning the fact that I can’t travel with them or that I can’t travel at all and the feelings of regret and shame often pour into my soul like a flood of emotion that takes me out of myself and out of the joy in living that can be found wherever I find myself to be. I have noticed these feelings and have often made those others wrong in some way for their traveling and that too, comes from my shadow in wanderlust that I hadn’t quite defined as such, until now. Even as I am writing this I am feeling an urge to escape from this moment by trying to get away from my computer where I write to have a shot of liquor or eat in order to regain the loss of love for myself that follows those feelings of sadness and loss, guilt and shame. Like all shadows, this one is continuing to show up as I am noticing it, trying to hide itself again as its nature is to do and I must continually check in on myself in order to dispel the grip this shadow has on me.
My shadow even wants me to finish this train of thought in order for it to move on to the next thing where it can keep me from experiencing the truth, that I am master of my soul.
