Destinations

One of my best friends from high school is dying in hospice. Although we didn't really stay in touch that much after high school, we reconnected on Facebook with mutual friends a couple of years ago. We met again in an impromptu reunion and she was ever the beautiful woman I imagined she'd grow up to be. The news of her illness came later. You would've never known this woman had a foot in death's door.

I think about her everyday, several times a day. I think about the pain she must be going through as well as the unfathomable sadness that her family must be experiencing with the imminent demise of someone so young. I try to wrap my mind around this -- that someone so beautiful, talented and the same as age as I is seeing this life shut down before her eyes every time she is conscious.

And next thing you know, my nephew and his wife have another baby and of course, she is as beautiful and adorable as any baby could be. A new life comes. A newish life goes. Our bodies wither but new bodies play.

It may seem trite to say, painfully obvious even, but there really is nothing but love to live for. And sometimes that love comes in the form of people who care about you who are not even blood related. We live in a world where family no longer has to do with traditional ties. Must I be out of love because I'm not in a relationship and I'm not a parent? Of course not. I am always already in love, even before I hook up with that man of my dreams. I live, eat and breathe love. Love is everywhere, within and without. Everything else is just a societal norm.

And while things are shaky, we are lucky -- because we are evolving -- and evolving means embracing all this pain and love in one space inside and expanding it beyond ways that were never heard of. That is the real technology. Tech of the heart.

This business about the word ending in 2012? That's bullshit. It's all about the beginning of a journey. Heck, the yogis talked about this five thousand years ago. They talked about how we are all connected and this was ancient knowledge long before telegraph, radio, television and internet.

Thoughts of my dying friend shall continue to haunt me, even after she passes. I find myself crying even though no amount of compassion can ease her plight. If that is what love is, if that is all that I can give, than so be it.

That is why I'm not surprised I should be so interested in travel writing again, because everything is travel; everything is a destination. While we all move forward, we are all going to that same place that is love, no matter where we land, where we set foot and where we tread.

Don't wait to travel to expand your heart. How far has your heart traveled today?