When you're on a flight to meet someone who at the time you thought could be the love of your life, the flight to the person seems to take forever. But it's also filled with such magic. Heart racing, a little sweaty, and the perfect amount of anxiety. It's almost like the plane is one big metaphor for cupid's arrow, flying from Houston to San Diego.
You get off of the flight, excited but also a little sad because the fun part is over. Now you have to face what the word "love" means to you. You keep the Southwest peanuts wrapper and stuff it in your pocket as a little memento, proof that you were once lucky enough to be on cupid's arrow. You think of how in 7 or so years you'll find it once you're moving from some big important city to another big important city for some big important job. You'll look at the wrapper and shed a tear or two at how much you've grown and how much you've seen. By then maybe you'll have ten wrappers neatly packed inside of the perfected sized box for things like physical memories that only you could understand.
But that's seven years from now. Now, you are taking a bus to one of your favorite beaches in America to meet the love of your life. You look around, the sun is about to set. You see a baby and play peek-a-boo with her. You see a dog and the owner tell you that it is alright to pet it. You make light chit chat of the dog's breed and everything feel's alright. This is what they must mean by it's not the destination it's the journey.
Pulling out a book that has the title Big Sur on the cover, you start to get annoyed. You want to be places you've never seen before with friends you haven't met yet. Envy isn't something you're not unfamiliar with. It's not hateful, your heart just longs for more. More peanut wrappers, more hotel's and hostels, more reasons to go places.
Now here it is, you're at the beach and you go looking for that one special person. You start to get agitated and your anxiety goes up.
"What if I am stood up."
"What if this wasn't worth it"
You think.
When just then you find a bench with a wise looking man sitting on the other end.
"Can I sit here?" you ask
"Yes! Yes!" he says.
The bench is facing the sun set.
You two both just sit there in awe. Then the man starts talking about how his oldest son just graduated, and how his other son is a doctor. You love when people talk about their kids. There's always a slight twinkle in their eyes.
He then begins to talk about the sun set and how everything came together so two strangers could take in such beauty.
"Where are you from?" He asks you. You tell him. He then tells you where he's from.
"Two wanderers looking at grace." He says. He gets up, bows, tell's you he hopes to see you again. He leaves and you turn around and there's your person walking towards you.
You think about this interaction more and more as you get older. With each passing year you begin to understand more coherently what a privilege it is to wander both with or without purpose.
