Shedding old skins

I dug out an old sketchbook/journal I started seven years ago on the precipice of becoming a nomad.

After browsing through it, this deceptively little notepad morphed into a heavy brick weighed down from a time of uncertainty and loss of a soulmate kind of love back then.

I started this nomadic journey to explore unbounded freedom in nature and experience a deepening of soul. But after looking back at words and sketches from that turbulent beginning I realize maybe I was really running from my love-haunted self.

I still love and at times pine for that lost soulmate but there’s a certain kind of wisdom and acceptance belying it. And there’s deep appreciation for having experienced a once-in-a-lifetime kind of love.

It feels I am starting anew every few years with different perspectives shorn from old skins whose layers of pain carved their wisdom into me.

The journey endures — it never ends because the moment I stop shedding old skins growth ends and a soul withers.