Eternity

I have stepped foot on every continent except South America. I have visited Australia, Alaska, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Singapore, China, Egypt, Dubia, Yemen, Paris, Ethiopia, Kenya. I have plans to visit Scotland, Ireland, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Greenland, and Canada. At each place I have found home. I have found discovery, knowledge and a wider appreciation of the world we live in.

I have traced a family name to discover an interesting path to its significance. I have grown and shrunk and cyclic cycles, all the while finding my footing wherever my feet have landed. I have gained and lost. I have gained work, education and wonder. I have lost family, Mom, Dad, Uncles, Aunts, and ties to living history.

Next year, we will inter Mom and Dad together. The plot already holds two people, and there is room for only six. My sister and my aunt will eventually be there too. I don’t remember who else is there.

What I do know, is that I will not be buried in the same plot. Not because the number is limited to six people, but because I have felt no deep ties to any place I have lived, but a sense of wonder at the mystery of the places I have lived and touched.

What my choice is this: Those people who have more ties to family will stay together. While I again find my feet and continue to marvel at the wonder of this world and all it has to offer me. There was a time when I might have felt that choosing differently meant something. That perhaps family should remain together even in death, our names gathered in one small piece of earth as proof that we belonged to one another.

At time I feel this decision shows selfishness and self-centeredness. But as I contemplate my decision, I feel it is more of a choice for me. To suit my wondering spirit without tying me to a particular place of people.

But I don't feel that way anymore.

I feel that I am closing a chapter of my life that I would rather forget. That is not the case. I have been bullied, and teased, and held accountable for choices. But I have never felt a sense of completion inside my family like I have when I travelled and buried myself in the miracle that are the mountains, lakes, rivers, oceans, and history of humans. I find wonder in a simple butterfly settling on a flower, or a bee gathering pollen. I have loved listening to lion cubs growling and wondering what it would be like to have one as a pet.

All of this doesn’t mean I am not tied to a place or that I don’t care. It means I can care about people fiercely without needing to remain beside them forever. I can remember where I came from without needing to return there. Perhaps it took me sixty-four years to understand that there is nothing wrong with that.

Some people have roots. I think I've always had feet.

Home was wherever those feet landed.

Maybe that is why, when I imagine eternal life, I don't imagine myself staying in one beautiful place forever. I imagine walking. I imagine learning to write stories, to playing the piano and strangely the violin, learning to paint, or draw. A life of examination and life experience. I imagine seeing parts of the world I never had time to see, sitting with people I would never otherwise have met, hearing their stories and asking questions. I imagine always having something new to learn.

Eternity wouldn't mean finally knowing everything.

It would mean finally having enough time to keep learning.

And if that is what waits beyond this life, then I don't need a particular patch of earth to call home.

I'll know it when my feet land there.