India - There it was. I’d never said it out loud before. Freed from a dark recess of my heart, the words seemed almost to vibrate in the daylight.
“But where do you want to go?” What was this paradise that could be so much better than the life we’d created?
At the time, I had no idea. I just knew I had always wanted to travel. In our first year of marriage I wrote three pages a day in my journal, more of than not trying to reconcile wedlock with the desire to pack up and hit the road. On our third anniversary, I’d given him one of those narcissistic we’re-really-a-couple books called The Book of Us. I’d answered the question, “What are your dreams for your life together?” in ballpoint ink: “to travel around the world.” Then I added “together” to bind words and hope.
There was nothing wrong with him, nothing wrong with me. But I wore despair and denial like a heavy winter coat—my dream, to voyage out like Freya Stark and discover myself amidst the sands of Arabia. I denied myself study abroad in college and backpacking through Europe, shuffling from school to a “good job” and finally a big Catholic wedding to a really nice guy who I loved and couldn’t see beyond.
By Kristin Zibell
(to be continued)
photo: Janin
