Sundays from the Porch

Choosing what's right.

People often think I’m crazy but I welcome an [annual] seasonal flu. (Only one.) The early symptoms, the muscle weakness specifically, is all the validation I never really need that I’ve been doing way too much. I like that it comes without permission and doesn’t ask but requires me to slow down. Influenza also has a wild effect on me, ever since I was a kid. I hallucinate. When I was little, I’d see people dancing around the room (figures that actually reappeared in my first ayahuasca ceremony). As an adult, while the veil still feels thinner, I see less figures and receive more premonitions.

I welcome it because I usually know I need the break and I also know there’s deeper awareness, clarity, and rebirth on the other side. I don’t try to treat the flu itself. There is no point, really. I just do what I can to soothe the symptoms: Halls for the nose and throat, homemade chicken and noodle (or chicken and rice) soup for the stomach, an evening hot whiskey (“Hot Toddy”) to get ready for bed, and lot’s of water to offset the sweating and everything else. There’s nothing like that moment when the fever breaks and you know you’re over the worst of it. True empowerment.

This one got me just after cancelling my winter (read: summer) commitments in Melbourne, Australia. I had absolutely burnt myself out over the last few weeks but accepting that I “just couldn’t do it” just compounded everything.

I think when we’re little we think the true measure of our adulthood will be all of the things we long for in those small-minded moments. The job. The car. The house. The partner. Maybe we think (for a split second) that adulthood is really the agency and permission to “do whatever we want all day.” But, it isn’t. It’s having the freedom to do whatever we want but choosing to do what’s right.

This winter, I’m choosing what’s right. These last few years have been home to the most indescribable experiences. I’ve unlocked my life in ways I never could have even imagined. I leveraged a longing for travel into a lifestyle. I spun an interest in change into a clear and definitive intention for something new. I went from feeling stuck to free to unmoored and back to myself again. Destination unknown, still.

I am relocating to Austin this winter. The city has been on my radar for a long while. It’s one of the most active, engaged, and progressive in the country with a culture grounded in adventure, hospitality, and growth. “The land of my people,” it seems.

The goal is simply to get settled after spending the last eighteen months traveling Ireland, Italy, Germany, Australia, California, Arizona, Peru, Czechia, Austria, Hungary, and more. It’s been a whirlwind, life-changing experience that I’ll never forget. I’ve woven wonderlust into the fabric of my being. Adventure will always be a part of me. There will always be a travel itinerary. The goal, for now, is to find home. It’s time.