It's been a while since the last post and my 100th day on the road seems so far behind. A new personal record is coming up though: six months and 10.000 kms on the road.
Six months is sort of a big one for me, because up until now, my longest trip took me away from home for exactly six months.
Now that I've been on the road for quite a while and after a lot of soul searching I have realised that it doesn't feel like I'm away from home anymore.
I've always tried to think of my time on the road as a change in my style of living and not as a time-out (read: holiday) from my normal lifestyle.
I don't like it when people refer to the way I live my life as being on holiday or on a cycling trip or even an adventure. I realise that somehow it is all those things, but it doesn't feel like that to me.
My journey/lifestyle/trip is not limited by time, distance or anything but myself. I'm not on a beach holiday, working in an office or studying at university and yet I get to clear my mind, relax, work hard and learn about all kinds of things.
This is my lifestyle of choice:
- I don't know where I'm going to rest my head at night, but when I do find a place to sleep (and I always do), the sky becomes my cealing and keeps me safe.
- I'm losing touch with a lot of friends, but I make new friendships and engage in relationships with people who are from different countries, cultures and (complexities).
- I sacrifice a lot, if not all privacy and people respond by lowering their personal barriers and sharing their private belongings with me.
- I cycle on roads that take me up and down, but my emotional state doesn't reflect the profile of the roads I take, instead I seem to be on plains of happiness and satisfaction.
- I LIVE ON THE ROAD.
All that probably sounds like a bunch of **** to you and not so long ago it would've sounded like that to me too. It took months of riding alone and also months of sharing the road with my brother or Chris until I realised and learned to accept that this is how I feel.
