I came back recently from a 2 week trip around California. We drove through the desert for 100s mile stretches with no gas stations and 100+ heat. We hiked up mountains at 10,000+ feet elevation in search of alpine lakes. We drove through a nearly empty Yosemite in 106+ temperatures, grateful for air conditioning and swimming holes. We chose to leave early when a forest fire came within 9 miles of our rental home. We gleefully stood under waves as they crashed onto glass at the Monterrey Bay Aquarium. We walked lightly on a beach north of San Luis Obispo where our eyes focused in on tiny, camouflaged frogs hopping away with each step we took. We did this with a 1 year old, a 4 year old, an amazing road trip partner, and an approximately 10 gallon plastic bin full of snacks.

Travel has a way of bringing new perspectives to who we are and where we have been. When I travel I can often take a step back and look at things and my own life back home as a movie narrator might — everything becomes clear, the picture zooms out, and I see the full context for my current struggles. Except this time, it was an entirely different experience.

Maybe it was the fact that I hadn’t been on a real trip in over a year and was just acclimating to life outside my small bubble. Maybe it was the fact that I was on a road trip, the first one in fact, with my two kids and was brought back to my own childhood family road trips. Maybe, I was just tired from said road trip with 2 kids.

Whatever the reason, this time, I felt fully present. I waited but I took no movie narrator seat. I waited for the clarity I typically get on my travels. The answers to the questions I was asking did not come. I kicked it up a notch and asked my future 90-year-old self what she would do, but she closed her eyes and hummed a quiet song on the porch. Thanks a LOT, future self. I pushed hard on a project I had a lot invested in, and it blew up in my face. Thanks a LOT, current self.

In the end, I took from that this is not the time in my story where the answers are clear. This is the time in my story where I need to notice what lights me up and follow that. This is the time in my story where I need to be available to what may come. This is the part of my story where I wrestle with my truths and half-stories because I’m still writing the stories.

This is the part of my story where I need not to find a way to escape the wrestling and the story writing; this is the part of my story where I see on the horizon the destination I’m looking for and chart the path to it with authenticity and heart.