My journey is at an end. I’m sitting at Oliver Thambo International Airport in Johannesburg and I feel like a very different person to the one that arrived in South Africa almost six months ago to the day.

I took many turns along the way. there were little side roads and straight roads and rough patches with potholes and easy riding tarred ones and ones with loose sand where my wheels got stuck.

Now that is at an end and I look back I realise that I have changed. Not that what makes me me, no the external things. How I dress, how I talk about things, how I feel about life. These things are different. But I am still me, maybe I am more me now than I have ever been before. Maybe now I see myself without blinkers.

I am happy too if you are interested reader. I feel like I can face the challenges life will throw my way. I am heading back to the North.

I’ve spent these last few days in South Africa contemplating and visiting with my mom. I’ve prepared myself mentally for always on electricity and  baths filled to the top with hot hot water and unlimited high speed Internet. I can leave the flat at midnight and walk down the street – by myself. 

I will miss this place though. I will miss the big open spaces that goes on forever and the way the light shines here. And the night sky that is filled with millions of stars. I will miss these things.

I guess we always miss something. Our souls keep the things we love inside of us. Our souls keep it alive and we can take it out on days when we long for it. We can take it out and turn it over and hold the dreams and the memories. And we don’t have to feel bad or like we failed in the lives that have passed. No, we can feel these memories and be like wow we lived. We lived them we survived them. We made happy memories and we can think back at them with maybe a nostalgic feeling.

All my actions and all my experiences made me who I am now and none of them were wasted. If I remember that, then I am way more free to just live and risk and feel. Because in the end it is worth it. Every second of life is worth it.