The past year and a half have been one amazing journey for me. So many things have come into my life during that time, things that are profoundly shifting who I am - yoga, Burning Man, a community of spirited and wonderful people, and a fellow traveler who won't let me become complacent. I've started discovering what it means to part with my ego and let go my fears.

The dream for this trip started when I decided to go to France and finally get my French in good working order. From there, why not visit my best friend in Istanbul? Oh, and my cousin will be in Azerbaijan by then, so I'll pop in and see her. Heck, I'm practically in Thailand by then, so why not stop in and visit Jodi and Allyn? Well, and there's the entire Indian subcontinent in the middle, so I should go overland as much as possible. Once I'm in Thailand.... wow, Laos and Cambodia and Vietnam are might nearby. At one point, my travel dreams included North and East Africa, the Middle East, and China. Frankly, I had to narrow it down. This won't be the only time that I get to travel, and I have pretty limited funds. I needed to figure out why I was doing this.

And I think I have. In order to get really up-close and personal with myself, I decided that I need to get out of this familiar context. I need to not spend most of my waking hours either working, getting up for work, or unwinding after work. I need to spend some time with my dreams and fears, undo some learning, laugh at myself, and scream when I need to. I need to not take much of anything for granted, to wake up out of a sense of routine and rediscover what's outside of the daily grind so that I can re-engage it when I return. I'm not going away to find myself. I'm going away to be with myself. I mean really, I'm pretty OK company. I hope....