Firstly, let me apologize for my very macabre title.. But as with all journeys they have a starting point.. a point where you look at your current situation and you ask yourself “what if?”. So this is my start, the point in my life where it all began… the beginning of my life as I know it now.

I guess with all journeys, they start with ambition… ambition for something more than you have and the hope of being more than you can be. The sad truth is that most times people that travel are always moving on from something, whether its bad, good or even an emptiness that you just can’t explain.

I went through the majority of my life feeling all of the above and not quite understanding why I didn’t feel like I belong. I guess from an early age I had an overwhelming feeling to travel- this itch that I couldn’t quite satisfy and this urge that could only be fed with nights of research of the great beyond… the “outside”, with it is endless possibilities, its endless colors and cultures and sunset and shores. It all seemed a journey I would never undertake, I knew it was out there but it was never in my reach.

Australia was my main destination, my young self eagerly waiting for my AOL dial up to bid my access to my “Other life”. I would send off for brochures, sure one day I would go there. It seemed like the other side of the world.. well in a sense I was right but the world seemed so big back then… so endless.

Without the sob story, I didn’t have a great upbringing, my childhood wasn’t one of raindrops, roses and whiskers on kittens. It was no kite flying in the park or Blackpool summer holidays. But what it gave me was a real sense of life. A real sense of one day escaping and becoming that person I had always wanted to be. And so I researched, I made pen-pals, I sent off for college brochures in Australia, even though I mustn’t have been anything more than 10 years old, but I had a dream. A beautiful dream. Little did I know, that at the age of 21, looking down at a women that died with so many regrets, did I put my dream into a beautiful reality.

My love affair followed me into my teens and well into my late teens. I never wanted to be anything, or do anything that didn’t involve travel. I had no real ambition to start a family, get a career selling insurance, nothing like that. Just that one day I would see the world. That I would have a backpack, my passport and my life ahead of me. But life didn’t quite go to plan. I guess life rarely does.

At the age of 18 I suffered a stroke, bed bound without a clue who I was, was a journey detour I had not expected, but it was part of my journey never-the-less. My first encounter with myself was in a mirror. I looked and the reflection staring back of myself was not one I knew. I had not remembered my wants, dreams or my wanting to travel. It was just me, staring back in the mirror, waiting for some clue to what I was or was to become. And so I moved… not instantly as first.No at first I had to learn to move my tongue. But gradually I walked when I was meant to sit and I ran when I was meant to take my first step. I found consolation in music; beach music, Jack Johnson and his talks of palm trees and coconuts and banana pancakes in bed. Without realizing I found comfort in travel. And that is what got me up. Staring out at the sunset, from my hospital bed I knew I had to move. I had to travel. I had to become the person I had always imagined. Proving everyone wrong, I played my Jack Johnson CDs and I stood. I fell back down more often than not… but I stood. I listened to the sound of waves and I took my first step. A step that lead me to the path I would take in life. And through such a hard time one thing shined through, my want and need to travel and my love for the great unknown.

And so I find myself at a funeral, 2 years from walking out of the hospital, I find myself over the body of my aunt. I would like to say she gave me a profound speech before she died, that we was so close her death inspired me to take the plunge, but no, we were not very close, I had met her a few times in my life but what she gave me was realization.

Growing up in a religious background I was taught that there is ALWAYS life after death, that you have infinite lives and possibilities and I was always taught the normal life of marriage, work, procreate and then the circle starts again. But that night after taking off my coat and getting into bed I thought- What if? What if life isn’t infinite? What if this is the life I am to live? These 70 years if I’m lucky. All these places I am yet to see, all these people I am yet to meet. This person I am yet to become. And with this, I logged on to a holiday booking website, and I booked my first trip to Fuerteventura. I was so excited… so nervous. But I knew I had never been so alive, so free and so sure of anything in my whole life. And with this, my journey of the world began. With this my life started. I have still so much more to learn, so many more places to see, but slowly I see myself develop into the lady I always wanted to be, flicking through travel pictures on my bright screen at night. Closer to the waves that got me to stand and take the first step to the start of my life.
I hope you enjoy reading my journey,
Love Belinda
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