Returning from Neverland

<< back << home

I visited only a handful of friends this year. The rest I wanted to see but I didn’t know what to say to them. The conversations started off easily enough but it was tiresome and difficult to summarize a year in five minutes and what else could we talk about after we had gotten caught up?

I don’t watch football anymore—I’ve taken up dragon-boat racing instead.

When we talked about the number one topic on everyone’s mind these days, terrorism, we don’t share the same fears. Now that I’m standing on the outside of the fence, I no longer can see it as “them” against “us.”

I’ve also missed out on important family events.

My brother is getting married soon. I’ll be there for the wedding but I won’t be there for his bachelor party. More important than the actual events, I missed the opportunity to sit around the dining room table with my family, arguing over which guests to invite, or what to serve before dinner.

Of course my family will always be there for me. “’This’ is your home,” my mother is fond of reminding me.

But friends are more difficult to keep. Without frequent, shared experiences, the path between acquaintances soon blows away.

What is most surprising to me is the friends who have remained close. These are the people who ask me when I’m coming home.

I realize that it’s with these people that I share something more than our friendship. These people, like me, have never stopped yearning for new experiences. These are the people who send e-mails about something new they’re trying, doing, or studying.

When you travel, when you study something new, it takes you out of your comfortable lair. The nakedness of not knowing all the answers is a painful blow to our egos. Trying to see the world from another person’s point of view takes great courage. I suppose that is my magic fairy dust.

Growing old is an affliction of the brain, not the body. The world needs people to hold down the fort but you and I are not one of them. The world also needs people who dare to fly, people who bring back stories that there is life outside the walls.

I realize now I travel not to see, but to tell people what I’ve seen.

“Second to the right, and straight on till morning.” That, Peter told Wendy, was the way to Neverland.

Greg Greunke has been traveling around the world for the last few years and now works in Japan. Check out Greg Greunke's website at www.geocities.com/soulsoilus.

<< home

<< back