Don't Follow My Lead

In case you haven’t figure it out, I didn’t cheat with another woman.  I might not be the best boyfriend, and I have made some mistakes in my life.   But I cheated with an idea.  An idea that has been haunting me for at least 20 years, probably 25 years.

When I was a kid my dad was subscribed to Reader’s Digest.  I would read it, mostly for the jokes and anecdotes at the end of the stories.   But sometimes I would also read some of the stories.

I don’t remember the exact name of the article, but if I remember correctly it was named: “Is there any good people left?”

The narrator was wondering if there were humans with good intentions left in the world, or more specifically the US. He decided to put it to the test by leaving all his credit cards, money and possessions behind, while he traveled from the East Coast of the United States to the West coast.  No money, no car.  Just the open road and hopefully the kindness of strangers.

In the story he talks about the different encounters and the different stories.  The one I still remember was of him walking in the dessert hitchhiking.   It was getting late and cold, cars were passing him by, and all of a sudden a couple of nuns in a car stopped, and said to him “You might be a murderer, but even if you are, we can’t let you walk by yourself in this weather.”  And gave him a ride.

He made it safely through the U.S.

I remember reading this story and thinking I want to do THAT!  This story, along with my feelings of never being in quite the right place fuel my desire to see the world.

To see if maybe I could find a place I could consider home.  Puerto Rico is so small in comparison, that I knew it couldn’t hold my desires.  As pretty as it is, it just wasn’t my home.   Growing up watching American movies, I thought that maybe the continental United States would be my place.  I learned English, and when I first saw the opportunity to leave I left.   Two weeks later I already gave up my Puerto Rico license for Florida, and never looked back.

But this desire to keep seeing more wasn’t satisfy with just being in United States.  Is a hungry beast and needs constant feeding.   I would try to appease it by traveling to London, Rome, all over the US, back to Puerto Rico, Spain, Peru.  But it goes beyond that.

For that reason I have decided to quit my job.   And travel through South East Asia (and hopefully beyond) for about 9 months of my life.