Off I went!

Around a month before leaving I got cold feet. I wondered if I should axe the whole road trip, sell my van that I'd just spent most of my free time converting (with help from my friend Dan. Hi, Dan - thanks again!), and just fly to Central America instead.

At this time, my journal was mainly full of words such as "anxiety" and other fragmented thoughts concerned with the ever-present check engine light, glowing a brilliant orange, in the Astro dashboard. Which, mind you, I did not get to the bottom of before I left. It was an O2 sensor, no big deal, ok!

I contemplated this whole, "no more road trip!" idea, before realizing that it would land me in the same spot mentally, just a physically different location. There was no running from myself - no magic destination that would effortlessly piece everything together.

The final days of summer flashed by, a sense of urgency fluttered in my chest, a glimpse into the unknown.

Leaving town was a flurry, the whole summer was a flurry really. I felt incredibly unprepared and increasingly nervous to set out alone, but it was time.

I left Tofino with virtually no plans; I just knew that I was heading south. I mused about visiting friends in the city and surfing south island, procrastinating the fixedness of actually leaving Canada. The whole world was opening up in front of me, but I was scared, and indecision surrounded me. I desperately wanted someone to guide me, I wanted to latch onto the familiar and stay with those I knew.

I think many people view me as having a certain kind of ease with transitions like this one, with leaning into seemingly radical independence and unplanned adventure. I struggle just as much as anyone with the unknown.

The process of growth is often sticky, it can be challenging and confronting to wriggle out of stuck-ness.

I left September 25th. High-tailed it out of town, bumping down the road with all my belongings that I considered essential. If you're curious, this includes two surfboards, three wetsuits, all the money I'd saved, and copious amounts of cashew butter - which I later learned my stomach does not agree with, much to my dismay.

September 26th, I was on the ferry out of Victoria. One way ticket to Port Angeles, please!
Almost instantaneously, the mood of my journal shifted.

I'll save some sappiness and travel-related cliches, but it reminded me of a period of my life during university, during which I was part-time living out of my car in Nova Scotia, while juggling my senior research project. Surfing, and exploring alone for the first time. I recall feeling like I was the only person in all of Nova Scotia, and everything was endless, limitless - mine to discover.

Now, although packed nose to tail with all the other cars in the ferry undercarriage, I once again felt those same feelings. Except this time, it was on a grander scale, I'd graduated university, had nothing tying me down, not one concrete plan and an entire coastline to explore in a new country. Once again everything began to feel endless, limitless.