Goodbye Oaxaca

It's been a beautiful ride, with ups and downs, and today, in perfect timing, I'm left with one big, bow-tie lesson for the whole experience - a gift for the road.

A few faces from my Oaxaca family, Cristian and Karyna.

This is my last full day in Oaxaca. There’s a lot to do and, to be honest, I’m overwhelmed by it all. Even so, I’m a very reflective person. I can’t help but scan my experiences for meaning and information. I can’t help but put the to-do’s on pause to reflect. And so, as I prepare my bags and prep this house for my departure, my mind is churning on what it is I’m left with after a month and a half of staying put in this city.

A lot has happened internally and externally. As I type these words tears are springing to my eyes. There’s emotion in goodbyes for me. I don’t love endings. Sure, chances are these are mostly just “see you laters,” but it still marks a chapter’s ending and a new chapter’s beginning. In my life of travel, I’m so aware of these endings and beginnings. The markers are crystal clear, unmistakably defined. I always leave knowing I’m different, I’ve changed in some way because of the experience. I leave knowing that when I return, all of these faces and even this place will be different too. This version of me, of them, all of it, will shift and change and require re-adjustment to slip back into. And so I grieve the goodbye to this version of everything.

But this is life. Perhaps the way I’m living mine makes it all the more clear just how much we are all always changing. This moment now is quite literally a point of no return, as they all are. Over this past month and a half, I have reconnected with old friends that feel like family here in Oaxaca. I’ve made blessed new connections and strengthened weak ties from before. I’ve reconsidered an old love, letting my heart re-open to its possibility, only to realize it’s better to put it back to rest. There have been tears and deep realizations along the way. There have been moments of despair and resistance and moments of unprecedented clarity about my life and its purpose, about what I want and what I don’t want. And I’m grateful for all of it. I’m grateful for the ride this place and its people have initiated within me.

As I leave, allowing this short chapter to close, what I’m left with most deeply is the realization that it’s not, and it’s never been, about staying or going, having or hoping. It’s always about just being where you are. I may be off to Nicaragua next and then Europe later, but none of that, thanks to this, is weighted down with any form of expectation. I’m releasing those willingly. I’m not going in search of what this place was lacking and I’m also not staying here in the grip of what I might lose if I go. Whether I stay or whether I go, whether I have or whether I don’t, is besides the point. The point is that wherever I am, there I may be, open and receptive of whatever that point in time, that place as it is at that moment, has to offer and teach me about me.

I used to say, as recent as when I arrived in Oaxaca weeks ago, that I’m my best self when in motion. I would have said that staying too long in one place brings out the worst in me, slowly putting to sleep my dreams, my inspiration, my life force. Now, I would say that’s not entirely true. I do believe I’ll likely travel this world until the end of my days, but I think what’s shifted is that I’m not traveling to avoid a certain version of me or to find a better one. I’m leaving with a newfound understanding that no matter how long or how short I stay in one place, I am always becoming, growing, changing, learning, stretching. It’s not only the movement that inspires that. The stillness does too, and perhaps it’s the stillness that challenges me most of all, and in the best way.

That cliche about life being about the journey, not the destination, continues to ring so, so true to me as I live mine. It puts my mind in a place where I can’t see my future. I can’t tell you where I’ll be this time next year, let alone next week. I can’t even tell you where I’m going or what I’ll do. Not in the sense that really matters. I’m just here. I’m always right here, wherever here may be. And right here carries so much of what really matters within it, so much of what makes what’s next what it will be for me. If I can just be here.

As I board a bus tomorrow and then a plane the day after, I’m leaving with a newfound sense of peace around just being on the journey and trusting that wherever I am is where I am and that it’s just right for me.

Thanks for being here. Thanks for following along. I love sharing my offbeat journey with you. And that is one of the few things I can very solidly tell you is part of what’s to come.

With love, one last time (this time), from Oaxaca,

Amber