what i learned on vacation

Remember high school? When your whole world basically existed within the walls of that building? Foreign affairs were pretty much reduced to the bus trips to opposing schools during sporting events. And being somebody was determined by how many semicolons you needed in the yearbook index. I hated traveling back then. I disliked the feeling of going outside of my universe. And my universe stayed small for a long time after high school actually. Maybe it does for lots of small town kids.

It wasn't until a few years into college that I started caring how many cool things existed outside of my universe and whether or not I would ever see any of them.

Now I love to go places. I love the feeling I get when I am in an unfamiliar town and there are people simply everywhere living their own small-universe lives. It's so freeing to let my own problems melt into the bigness of humanity. And so inspiring to see the endless possibilities of life - where to live, where to work, what to drive. And so powerful to understand - I guess - how little I matter.

I never feel more important than when I stand aware, smack dab in the middle of my insignificance. I think that's the first step to being able to matter at all.

(P.S. The cancer checkup went well too. I'm still free of it!)