I moved house recently, and as I suspect is a common occurrence, I came upon many items I had temporarily stored in my mental file thirteen.  Amongst those, were literally volumes of photograph albums I have accumulated through my life, and I could not resist taking thirty minutes off from box unpacking to take a peek at them.

Some photographs made me sad, as I looked at snaps of happy times with folk who have subsequently left this planet and headed to heaven.  Too many of these photographs in fact.  However, most images made me happy as I recalled some incredible times in my life, mainly travelling, and having that wonderful feeling of freedom and of, “everything will be okay”, and the even better feeling of, “even if it isn’t okay, I don’t care, I will deal with it”.

I read such a brilliant quote recently – “travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer”.  How very true.  I have come to terms with the fact that the nanosecond I popped into the world, I was ingrained with a travel bug so clear that if it were a glass door, you would walk straight into it.  Along with that bug came a lust for all things freedom – wonderful as a teenager, and a young adult through university, and my London days too, but not so wonderful for anyone trying to date me now, in fact, I have been told that trying to date me in my roaring forties, with this very love of travel and all things “don’t try and pin me down” is much like trying to grab a tiger by its tail.  Oh dear.

All this being said, I turned the pages of the old albums, and my heart soared at the memory of all the incredible fun I have had through the decades, and how lucky I have been to have travelled so much, and to have seen and done so many things – and there is still so much to do and see, and so many places to shake up a bit through my mere presence post the inevitable bottle of sauvignon blanc. 

There were pictures that made me pine for that old, no responsibility in the world feeling; there were pictures that made me cringe – like the one of my cousin and I hanging onto police men on New Year’s Eve 2001 in New York City, trying to get ourselves arrested as we thought that may add some spice to the evening.  Probably not our smartest move a mere three months post the tragedy of the 11^th of September; and there were pictures that reminded me that life is a treasure, and that each and every trip in my life has been a gift, and has added to my already colourful life, and I must appreciate that.

And so the departing thoughts (yes, there are two) – travel as much as possible, spend that money that will make you richer, and more importantly, remember that life is short, so make sure you laugh, while you still have teeth.