the story of a life of wandering
Here’s the introduction with an added part about finding travel abroad at age 27 and trying to start a life experiencing the whole world:
I was born into this world with a deck already stacked against me. The foster system was my first harsh reality, stripping me of any sense of permanence or belonging. By the time I aged out at 18, the streets had hardened me, priming me for a vicious cycle of run-ins with the law. That fateful arrest landed me in the cold, unforgiving grip of jail, the rattle of cell doors closing behind me echoing the life I was destined for.
But fate had different plans. On the very day I was released, a wild free spirit crossed my path in the most unlikely of places – a train yard. With a devilish grin and a life defined by riding the rails, he awoke a part of me that felt predestined for pastures yet unexplored. Under his tutelage, I immersed myself in the nomadic world of freight train hopping and hitchhiking’s spiritual cousin – the art of catching freight wherever the iron road may lead.
From that point on, the calling to wander became ingrained into my very bones. Each journey, every new rail yard pulled me further into an awakening – that true freedom lies not in physical confinement, but in existing as a humble voyager upon this earth. The binds of my past slowly unshackled with every mile marker carved into the wanderlust inscribed on my soul.
At 27, my horizons expanded in the most cosmic of ways when I embarked on my first travels abroad. Suddenly the entire world, in all its multitudinous cultures and landscapes, beckoned to be experienced fully. A new lust for life consumed me – to shrug off the bindings of statusquo existence and lose myself in the beautifully chaotic dance of human diversity.
Now, I’ve awakened to my life’s true calling – to craft a life of perpetual exploration, to dhumanly embrace every soul’s universal desire to exist free as a humble witness to creation’s marvels. Through whatever means possible – freight train, highway rides, or jet plane – I’ll crisscross this world in search of the deepest of connections. To see every sunrise over foreign lands. To love as purely and openly as the Hamong tribesmen. For I’ve come to learn that we are all nomads on this cosmic journey called life. And my role is to experience it as boundlessly as a wildflower in an infinite field of awakening.
