Odessius

I recently had lunch with a friend, whose 21 year old son was done with college and in the local fire force. Wow, he is set for the rest of his life already and here I am, at 26, doing what? My 17 year old brother is making commission selling phones, drives a BMW, and looks on me with unbridled distain—“What are you doing, Sarah?” “ I’m not going to spend the rest of my life in school!” “I’m helping Mom and Dad, you abandoned them!” I know he has no clue, but it is still hard. I guess I have to ask, what did I get out of the last 5 years? Apart from Bantu languages and the real taste of pineapples, what did I learn? When I started this journey, I wanted a chance to think, to breathe, a wilderness experience. I wanted a colorful mosaic backdrop on which to paint the rest of my life. More than that, in my gut, I just had to go, I had to do it. Thankfully, I read Homer’s Odessey before coming home. On his way home from the war in Troy, Odessius lost all his booty, his ship, and his crew. He was delayed for over a decade, held up by various goddesses and vagrants, but, in the end, he returned. Despite all the delays, despite all the loss, despite, at times, regretting his life, he never regretted making the journey. It was, after all, the journey that made his homecoming the most epic poem of several millennia. His journey made him.