France-Part One

I recently set out on a journey…


It was a significant moment in my life. Something happened along the way that changed me.

I decided to break my account of this into multiple parts. Here is the first.



A few weeks ago I made a trip to France. I was able to see buildings and structures that have become iconic over generations of time. I was able to interact with people of a foreign culture. I was able to stand in places that have become immortal in history books and family legacies.

Also, I was also able to take this journey amidst a constant accompaniment of my thoughts.

This trip was a last second decision. My school had the week off, but I was planning on staying in town and maybe taking some day trips. I figured I could finally see some of the places around me that I keep meaning to visit, while at the same time taking it easy on my wallet. However, as the time leading up to the break became smaller and smaller, so too did my rationality. Two days before the break, I bought a roundtrip ticket to Paris.

I was to leave on Saturday. On Friday, I was asked by a fair amount of friends and colleagues what I was planning on doing over the course of the vacation. I told them I was heading to Paris, with the ultimate goal of going to Omaha Beach, one of the beaches of D-Day, and the one that my grandpa had landed on. Every person said how great Paris is and how exciting it will be, and they all had the same question for me, “Are you going alone?” I would respond by saying, “Yes,” or sometimes a more casual, “Yep,” as if to say, “No big deal.” They would then say, “How cool,” or, “Good for you.” I thought it was pretty cool myself--The idea of it anyway.

Truth be told, beneath my bravado laced “Yep” was a bit of insecurity.

I think we often wonder what our limitations are. I know I wonder how much my body can handle, and I wonder even more how much my mind can take. I like to think that I can do the things that I dream up in my mind. They are the sorts of things that put to real life the vision I have of myself. You see, I have two versions of myself. The one that resides at the limits of all my abilities, and the one that is actively trying to catch up to that person.

I also like to think that I have a clear vision of who I am, which means that I am uncomfortably aware of the discrepancies between that person and the person I ultimately want to be. But that discomfort is good. In a large way, that’s what this whole journey to Scotland is about—challenging myself to be the person that I want to be. I purposefully say ‘want’ rather than ‘can’. I am not sure we need to push ourselves to be all we can be, but I do think we need to strive to be who we want to be.

And the only way we can know who in fact we want to be is to get to know ourselves better.

So I went to France a few weeks ago, alone, to get to know myself a little better.