When I set out on The Incredible Journey, my goal was to travel for a year and to see all seven continents.  That’s what constituted the Journey for me at the time.  My ideas about this have changed a bit and I’ve realized that the journey isn’t just a physical one consisting of moving and traveling all the time.   It’s also an emotional and spiritual journey.  I really became aware of this when I was forced to take a detour on the journey.  I was about seven weeks in and I had done six weeks in Mexico and about one week in Belize.  I plans were to move on to Guatemala and then into Honduras.  I had it all a planned out.  I had also met a great group of people and we were having a great time.  We had been traveling for about a week and we had plans to continue.  Well, life had something in store for me.  On Wednesday, October 1^st, I found out that my uncle in Chicago had died.  He actually probably died on the Saturday prior, but since he lives alone he wasn’t found until his work finally called the police.

Despite my plans and despite having to leave the group of friends I had been traveling with, I decided that I needed to be with my family.  I flew out of Belize City two days later and I was able to be present at the funeral and also be able to help with logistical things like cleaning out his apartment and trying to settle all the affairs.

At first when this all happened, I was considering that The Incredible Journey was “paused” for that week while I was back in The States.  It was on the bus back to Belize City that I realized that I was still on The Incredible Journey, but that this was a slight detour.  I might not be physically going where I had originally planned and I might not be heading to some exotic location, but this journey is more than just seeing new things.  It’s about growth.  Many would say that saying goodbye permanently to a family member forces you to grow in ways that one wouldn’t expect.  In this regards, I now view the trip to Chicago as just another part of the Incredible Journey.  It was maybe more of a detour as opposed to being paused.

Now that I’m back in Central America, I’m trying to keep all of this in mind.  No matter how many plans I make they could all be turned upside down with one phone call or one e-mail.  We need to be ready for the unexpected and ready to roll with the punches.