Flash Forward…Home

Just a brief skip forward to the present day:

I’m back in Pittsburgh.

72 days after leaving my family’s home, I walked through the front door at 5:00 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day. I’m certain that my return on this holiday was by no mere coincidence, but that will be for another post.

Shell Shock

I’ve been lost in a bit of a daze ever since returning. Things don’t appear to me the same way as they once did. A quote by Marcel Proust, which I found in an incredibly influential book called The Mindful Writer, sums up the phenomenon that I’m currently experiencing.

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes but in having new eyes.”

In the time that I’ve been gone, I have acquired a new set of eyes.

Hope You Don’t Mind…

But I need you now, as I knew I would.

Returning to familiar stomping grounds presents a challenge to staying mindful of the lessons I’ve learned and the things that I’ve seen. Writing daily for you will continue to be my reason to focus on, analyze, and document my Journey of Fear, beginning to end. In doing so, it is my hope to be able to solidify this new set of eyes within my own mind, for many years to come.

As my brother recently reminded me, I really don’t know what I’ve learned just yet. I have hundreds of pages of raw journal entries that I will be boiling down and refining over the next few weeks. Plus, it will simply be fun to recap on all of my unusual adventures along the way. I think you will enjoy it equally as much.

Thank You

This time, I’m thanking YOU. I wouldn’t have gotten as far as I have without the support and guidance of friends and family. And I certainly would not have made it as far, had I not received the financial help that you all gave via GoFundMe.com. Your support for my Journey, both emotional and monetary, is the reason why I’ve seen so many wondrous things in the last 2 1/2 months. The simple knowledge that others out there were emotionally invested in my experiences has, at times, been all that I’ve needed to keep pushing forward.

Now I will attempt to extend and relate to you the love and wisdom that I’ve encountered throughout this trip, in the hopes that you might glean the very same benefits that I have from my Journey of Fear.

For the next few weeks of my life, I write.