The everywhere of nowhere.

I want to drink up all that nature has to offer; get drunk on her brilliance, roll in perfumed meadows and dance under the eternal cosmos.

My life meanders between crisis and euphoria, direction and vagabond. But the absolute clarity of soul that the outdoors gives me infallibly and selflessly brings me home, every time. Lately, this truth has been haunting me. The discovery of your soul's purpose should be a transcendent experience; and it is, when I don't think too much about it. But when I do stop to think (often under the paralyzing influence of society and its expectations) I get an overwhelming sense of anxiety, like a toddler separated from their mother. This anxiety-ridden haze is full of dubious untruths: like, "you can't have a career and also do the things you love, that's what retirement is for" or "van life? That's a one-way ticket to nowhere."

Though that's kind of the point, right? To go nowhere in particular, but in the process go everywhere? To me that's the only way one can even begin to understand their place in the world. Because, in fact, we belong all over--just not the "all over" that humanity has greedily confiscated. We are inextricably intertwined with a precarious ecosystem, and realizing our minuscule yet vital role within that ecosystem is the only fighting chance we have to survive as a species. I believe that our souls are the same as the ones that swim under the waves, wriggle through the soil, or soar through the sky. I also believe that in order to truly know this, we have to each personally find our connection to that greater soul. The way to do that is up to you, but it is essential.

My connection was born the moment I stepped foot onto the Camino de Santiago, when I first held my puppy in my arms, when I saw the milky way with naked eyes in the Montana sky. I search for it everyday. I yearn for it.

So alas, I find myself at a crossroads. Do I live my life the conventional way, at the expense of a part of my soul? Or do I live my life how it's been shown to me in nature, at the expense of expense itself? I will have to sacrifice many of the comforts that money provides, because money quite literally does not grow on trees, but that doesn't bother me much. Nothing compares to the pure joy I feel when I stand next to a twirling, whirling river and smell the minerals wafting off its misty surface. No material thing measures up to the peace I feel when I curl my toes into the sand and listen to waves crest and crash in a rhythmic dance along the shore.

Call it minimalism, call it insanity. I have found my true love and I plan to spend the rest of my life with her.

No matter what it takes.