Self-Reflection (excerpted from my journal)

Entry #2 from Capetown - today is my last day here. I am sad because I have had some amazing times here but I am more excited because, after 10 days, I am ready for what's next. And, lucky for me, what's next happens to be a three-week overland camping trip through Namibia, Botswana, and ending in Victoria Falls.

I have to say, things worked out fatefully well with my itinerary. By the time I was mid-way through the Garden Route, I was so ready for a big city. Then I arrived in Capetown and proceeded to party ever night for one week straight, go on a shopping spree and charge almost $500 to my credit card. In my 11 days here, I have seen every single sight, done (almost) every single activity that the Mother City has to offer. And I must say - she has been good to me. I have some great memories from my time here. But now, 11 days later, I am ready to blow this popsicle stand! Now I could not be more ready to get back into "real" Africa, be in the wild and in the boonies, camp! And, apropos as it is, that is what comes next for me.

The days are rolling by and I am so so happy, so relaxed. I have been traveling for approximately 40 days now and there has rarely been a dull moment. Overall, my times alone have been cherished because I am so often with another traveler. I am so excited, wonderous, and brave. I am so thankful for this experience, for the amazing blessings that have marked my journey thus far. On my last day in Capetown and I have been safe and healthy the whole way through. I feel that God, or some greater force, must be looking out for me, protecting me. Who knows, maybe I am creating it for myself out of my own intentionality to be safe. Either way, I feel for the first time this year that I am exactly where I am supposed to be, I am exactly the person I want to be. I have been groping so long to find this feeling, and to finally possess it makes me feel so incredibly fulfilled and free. Every day is the best day of my life. How could it not be? The world is at my fingertips... literally.

I am breaking so many outdated beliefs that I created about myself years ago - I am not an outdoors person, I get homesick, I am a spoiled brat, I can't do it on my own. Well guess what, I was wrong. Maybe not wrong, per se, but I had been continuing to idnetify myself out of an identity that had been created by a child, as if it were steadfast and true. So I was a 10 year old girl whose sleeping bag got rained on at horse back riding camp and I had one of the most miserable nights of my life. Who wouldn't have been miserable under those conditions? But I created from that that I wasn't "outdoorsy," and I have operated ever since as if it were true. Sure, I may be a fair-weather camper, but who isn't? Who wants to go camping in a hail storm? Now I find myself on the brink of a three-week camping trip through Southern Africa and I ask myself, if I am not an outdoorsy person, to do this, then I don't know what I am.

Of course, this is only one example of the ways that I find myself constantly recreating myself, redefining myself and my sense of self-identity here. I am no longer constrained by my past configuarations, limitations of self. Every moment is generative, an opportunity to create myself anew.

xoxo,
Sara