Last day in Mexico, Dec 27, 2020.
First day in Tel Aviv, March 27, 2019.
Pic in Philly, 2021. 
When I packed up (exactly) 2 years ago today, I knew it was a big step. I didn’t realize just how giant it was, though. 3 months of traveling, all planned and laid out in advance… turned into 21 months of moving around, spontaneously, making a home of wherever my feet take me.
Traveling as part of a couple turned into traveling by myself. Traveling to explore turned into traveling to develop & understand. Exploring … turned into living.
The truth is, I’m often a wimp.
So for most decisions in my life, I have this silent chant: God/Life/You, please, close the door or open the door. Shut it tight or open it wide. And give me the courage + skill to enter or leave accordingly.
And somehow, doors close and doors open. And somehow I find the courage and the skill to enter or leave — for better or for worse.
I still don’t fully understand how it all happens and works, but as I sit here and reflect on the last 2 years, I think about this frustrating paradox that is life:
(1) The tremendous (individual) power we, humans, have to create the life we want or don’t want. (2) Be completely at the mercy of (often) unseen forces that shape and condition us into becoming.
(3) Have control of ourselves and yet not much of anything else.
(4) Humans tend to bend + control the external because the most difficult thing to learn + control is internal
(5) The overarching theme: THIS IS LIFE. ALL OF IT.
(6) You can take it apart, put it together, dissect, explain, and write about it. But the glory (for better or worse) of life comes from living it.
(7) And it seems best to live it according to the “you” that you are at the present moment — which, I found, is the *hardest way*. (Since there is often a past/future “you” that is a well-intentioned but obnoxious backseat driver!)
The last 2 years cost me a lot — in all ways. The last 2 years rewarded me with so much — in all ways. Today, I take a moment to acknowledge and embrace all of it. Today, I take a moment to feel the joy and pain in participating, the freedom and responsibility in decision-making, the trials, and errors in walking a path, the twists and turns in living a life.
It is good. L’chaim. 
Viva La Vida. 
