Taking a Trip…

I got home last night from a quick and fabulous birthday trip to some of the most amazing and beautiful places in the western United States. I know…I’m a lucky girl (for real)! I love seeing new places. I really dislike the “traveling to new places” part of traveling, have high car anxiety, and usually go kicking and screaming but, when I finally arrive at my “travel destination” (I lowered my voice there), it’s usually worth the blood, sweat and tears that “traveling” takes out of me.

One of the many “highs” of seeing new places is that I can avoid the comparison game…the one that my ego plays where it compares whether this experience is “better or worse” than the last time (you know that game, right?). Because the comparison game is off the table with a new place, it’s fresh, exciting (I almost broke out into a dance, too!), and keeps me “in the moment.” It’s probably my favorite part of exploring new places.

I’m curious, playful and welcoming…fully immersed in the moment…taking it all in.

I wonder why it’s so hard to do this in normal, everyday life? I just answered my own question (you should try this writing thing…it’s very therapeutic). It’s because I’ve labeled it, “normal, everyday life.” Doesn’t that sound exciting? To me neither. It sounds very “ho hum…just me, going through normal, everyday life here…I’ll be okay…”

Now I feel selfish (great…).

Is there such a thing as “normal, everyday life?” Maybe, but I kind of doubt it. It’s pretty much a miracle that my birthday, 276 years ago (yes, I founded the West…it was me) even happened. I’m not sure of the exact percentage (and I doubt humans that even think they know the exact percentage are accurate), but the probability that I was even conceived are like a gazillion to one (which is a lot). In that exact moment a miracle happened, and a “little ME” started growing. There was a bunch of other “little ME’s” that got passed over that day. Apparently, not to brag here, they hadn’t done the prerequisite “being-human” checklist to the Design Team’s satisfaction (mini-lesson: not everyone makes the team every time).

So now, many years later, it takes a trip or a new experience for me to fully be in the moment…feeling everything…experiencing every drip of it. And maybe that’s true and maybe it’s just ME, being a little hard on myself (know anything about that?).

What I’ve learned in these two and a half centuries is that this life is amazing and that I’m more grateful today for living than I ever have been.

This is one of the gifts (and there are many…another gazillion) of aging. The older I get, the more I truly live…it’s a trip, I tell ya (little slang thrown in there for effect…you’re welcome). My appreciation for how I experience new places is really me experiencing myself in new places. I have a better appreciation of “ME” these days…new places help illuminate that and I am beyond grateful for that.

So, what’s the lesson here? Great question (you’re super good at this). My “birthday” reminds me that this life and ME in it are miracles of my internal and external world effortlessly colliding together. Many times, I (apparently) take that for granted and move through my day, my “normal, everyday life.” But this life?

It’s not normal…this life is mind-blowing.

This life, the older I get the more I truly believe this, is beyond what our human ego can comprehend…which is why sometimes it takes a trip to a new place to experience beautiful canyons, a lake that is pristine and perfect, big-horned sheep walking up the side of a rocky mountain (where humans need ropes and equipment), majestic beauty in canyon country, and an earth that is far more beautiful and perfect than I can do justice with this blog.

You see, what opening my mind and being fully present in a “new place” does for me is opens my mind and allows me to be fully present with me in the beautiful life that I am living.

What we see is what we project.

So, I took a trip. I let go and “suffered” through my car anxiety to get to a place that taught me that what we see is what we are. Sometimes the Design Team gives us a new experience to wake us up…a little more…to the fact that our internal and external world are one world…a world of perfection.