Comfortably Alone

About halfway through the UK trip, towards the end of our stay in Edinburgh, I found myself restless like nobody's business. It was the kind of feeling that you get when you're a kid and you just feel like running. Simply running, in any direction, as fast as you can. My dad was crashing, but the city was still awake, so I grabbed my jacket, my ipod, threw on my shoes, and headed out the door.

There's something about walks alone in unfamiliar places. There's so much to process. Everything is new. Everything looks different, ominous, and alive at night. I literally just set out. I didn't have a particular destination in mind or any particular reason for walking. I just wanted to get out in the open and cruise... see where the city led me as I got sucked into the current of the late evening.

It's hard to describe what I felt that night, pretty much the only night that I set out on my own and explored. It was something like the feeling you get when you're doing something you love and you're just kind of flowing in it. That feeling that you're integrated into something you were made or meant to do. What's so incredible about that is the fact that a couple years ago that moment would have been dominated by frustration with being alone. I don't feel that way any more. I kind of love it. Don't get me wrong, I love being around people still, but there's something so satisfied about being unhindered and active, setting out on a path that you will walk on alone.

I think in a lot of ways, this also points to a larger issue that God's working out in my life that was continued with the Beatles tour (see earlier post). I think there's an inherent fear that arrives when we're alone (i.e. is this permanent, can I hack it, would others approve) that erodes our confidence and holds us back from the adventure we could experience if only we had the guts to take it on.

I'm ready for more of those "here we go" moments. Those first steps that you have to take alone where you literally have no idea where you'll be led and who you'll meet along the way. Whether that's more work in Africa, or Thailand, or coaching, or even something completely different, I'm down to be boldly uncertain.