Day 3

You know, I never learn. After the whole hiking fiasco that happened yesterday, I did it again. This time, we decided that we wanted to go see the ocean. With no idea what to expect of this ‘ocean,’ we packed a few food items and extra pair of shoes, and started biking. Today’s biking was much worse than yesterday’s. The road down to the ‘ocean’ was the high way and of course it was a little sloped. We biked and biked and biked, dragging my burning thighs along and when I just think we are stopping, nope nevermind there’s miles ahead of us to travel still.

When we finally get to our destination it turns out that the ‘ocean’ is not so much of an ocean but more like a salt marsh. It was about three hours walk to and fro, and since there were quite a bit of daylight left we decided to go on ahead. The walk was refreshing. At least I thought so. I wasn’t so sure about how my roommate might have felt though. She looked a little disappointed. 

On our way we met a couple of German girls. They said they were out traveling New Zealand since last September. They looked so young I had to ask, and they told me that they just finished high school (or whatever the German equivalent is of our ‘high school.’) I was thoroughly impressed, and told them that they were brave. Then they replied, “We’re doing this because we won’t be able to travel once we’re older.”  I wanted to tell them that they will get their chance as an adult also but I didn’t.

There’s truth in what the German girl said to me; there’s no doubt about that. But I also think there’s some truth in what I wanted to tell them. I think there are so many relative truths that I’ve believed in. I think I was so caught up with things that adults around me use to say. You know, the thing about stability and how settling down is the best choice in life. There are a lot of other relative truths that tied me down also- things like how I’m not pretty enough or how I’m not good enough to achieve what I want. There are probably some truths in all of those statements but ‘some’ means just some, not all. The rest, the parts that are not ‘some truths,’ are probably non-truths. In other words, they are probably lies. So why did I let myself believe in those lies? I already know of an absolute truth. Everything else contains a little bit of lie within them. So why did I tie myself down with things that are only relatively true?

I wonder if this is the reason why people travel. Because there are such simple but so essential lessons you learn just by getting out of your comfort zone a little. This was what I thought of as we walked that three hour trail.