Early morning musings from the southern hemisphere

It’s four-thirty in the morning in Melbourne. I’m wide awake because I’m a genius and left the ambien in my checked luggage. But I don’t care. I can’t care. Right now, (and I know I will regret these thoughts in a dozen hours when it is midnight back home and my limbs and brain separate and become blobs of body parts unwilling to move or think or do) jet lag doesn’t matter – doesn’t exist. I’m flying to Australia.

Me.

In flight.

TO OZ.

My body is calmer now than it was on the way to the airport, more subdued, accepting. A half-hearted sleepiness, the immobility of being confined to a middle seat for the past 11 hours, the soothing voices of Rascal Flatts streaming through bright blue Virgin Australia headphones, and the blood orange sunset (sunrise?) I can see through the tiny postage-stamp window at the far end of the row – all wrap around me like a warm fleece blanket.

My body is calm. My legs feel sluggish. My glossy eyes peer slowly through splotchy, smudged glasses.

But my mind – oh! My mind is bubbling with excitement. My mind is dancing and jumping and flying through the upcoming year. I’ve never felt like this before – everything feels bigger (except my airplane seat… guess it didn’t get the memo). I’m not scared, I’m terrified. And I’m not just happy – I feel ecstatic and full of life and chance. Full of possibility.

I don’t even care that I left the address to our hostel at home. Or that I forgot to call VISA to let them know I’ll be traveling and to pretty please not cancel my card and prevent me from accessing any money at all. Because hey! It’s almost breakfast time, and do you know what that means? FREE BOOZE. (oh, and more importantly of course, that we land in three hours!)

I think I’m going to fit in just fine.

With love,

the traveling stahr…