Travel Tales: It’s Just One of Those Weeks

View of the Colosseum, Rome, with preparations for the Andrea Bocelli concert the next day

I’ve been out of it for the past week with bronchitis. So many people have asked me if it was worth the trip to Europe (after they ask if I have swine flu; no, I don’t) and I’m happy to say it was!

I feel as if my life has been expanded in ways I never expected and as if I am connected to the rest of the world more now. No more walking around with blinders on (if you’ll bear with my expression), because I’ve seen more of the world (including several countries still hoping to be included into the EU) and I know a few more things now. And, truthfully, my prejudices were changed after the trip. No longer do I consider things the same way I did before and that is progress.

Even though we missed hearing Andrea Bocelli sing live in the Colosseum (wouldn’t that have been amazing?), Rome was a spectacular piece of the trip (short as it was and exhausted as I was). I came right home and watched Gladiator and 300 and a ton of other Italy-based chick flicks (Three Coins in A Fountain, Roman Holiday, Under the Tuscan Sun, even Charade, which was based in Paris; close enough, right?).

I will be going back to Rome and soon, I hope. There is so much still to see! I feel quite blessed to have visited even once.

While I’ve been down sick, I’ve been reading memoirs. Fabulous! I love them better than fiction now (that is amazing for me to say, too). There is something so utterly compelling about the lives of real people and how faith or raw courage gets them through. I find that I’m coming out of my illness with a renewed sense of wanting to be authentic, and wanting to find out what I’m meant to be doing each day (I feel as if I still just do things because they are in front of me and not because I’m meant to be doing them).

So I dispensed with a couple clients, had another long-term writing client decide to change direction, and I feel lighter and more certain I’m headed to the right thing I’m supposed to do. That sounds so woo-woo, but I feel so much peace about how everything came down. Plus it meant the large sum of money that was up in the air while the client decided about which way to go came to me earlier than I thought and I feel as if a giant yoke has been lifted from my shoulders. I strongly believe this week that when God closes a door, he opens about four more (not just a window, although it sounds nice rolling off the tongue).

Life is too short to be headed down dead ends and going off on tangents. I may finally be to the place where my wandering down any side road that looks intriguing has ended. That is kind of a huge accomplishment. (I don’t have kids with which to accomplish that, so I needed other things!)

So, I think bronchitis was definitely worth it. The trip to Europe was just fabulous and I was able to come home and slow down enough to “see where God was aiming at” and to be seen by my Abba Father (sorry to those non-religious folk who read here, I can’t help it!).

And for those of you who wonder if Rome is full of pickpockets, (yes, it is) here’s a picture that cost us 5 Euro. I’ve never been accosted by Roman soldiers before and forced to have my picture taken (5 Euro each)! It was a fun memory, albeit costly.

Yes, I’m going back to Rome! And soon!

Tagged as: brilliant, real, Travel Tales