Week 0:Tomorrow I go!

The kidney stone was removed, the gear repacked, and the keys to my apartment handed over to my landlord in the morning. That day, I left.

I couldn’t sleep the night before—apprehension, doubts, and a firework of thoughts had erupted in my mind.

I’d had my last meal with friends, received a thumbs-up from my therapist, and I felt ready. Yet, every time I hugged or spent time with loved ones, I was assaulted by doubts. I calmed myself, reminding myself they’d be in my heart throughout the journey. This wasn’t goodbye; it was a see you later on the road.

My girlfriend had done her best to help me manage my anxieties and fears. It wasn’t easy to try and build something while preparing to leave. Falling for a Nomad isn’t always an easy choice...

So it was goodbye, Toulouse, and hello, world.

That final day, I frantically packed and repacked my gear. I didn’t think I had the capacity to do much more

I knew my first two stops.

First, I said goodbye to my dad. It was going to be tough; he struggled to remember who I was at the best of times. I felt guilt for leaving, but again, I could have been gone a day or a year and he wouldn’t really have known the difference—dementia has its perks… Sarcasm aside, he wrote me a poem in 2019 just before we noticed the insidious effects of his disease. This is how it went:

My Son must leave this life,

 some day, long after me.

I cannot bear this thought

So bold, and true is he.

Oh let him live forever

Even if there is no  heaven

Let him live upon the earth

And ask everything of its beauty and

Utter mystery;

Let him forget me and be free

To find and cross continents and mountains,

And dance upon the rolling endless sea

Torrential Rain nor loneliness shall

Destroy his steps

Nor deserts stop his onward flow;

Let the world be his from death to Birth

Inextinguishable and free

Joseph Clark 2019

I must honour his poem, allow myself to be free, I kept his poem on me. I would miss him, I miss him, I was grateful for his words I wished he could have share this adventure with me. Hewas safe and that’s all that mattered, his mind might have be gone but his spirit was alive in me.

My second stop was to visit my mum's grave and say goodbye. We had buried her ashes in my godparents' peaceful and sun-stroked garden, under the shade of a giant protective cedar tree and a sweet blooming lemon tree. She, too, was an adventurer. In her youth, she had travelled alone to India and taken a bus across Afghanistan. I knew she would have approved of my adventure; she was brave and fearless. I carried her with me everywhere I went.

After that, it was the open road, all farewells completed, and time to let the past be.

So tomorrow I go, that’s all I knew.