So here’s a little observation I’ve made this year: my friends need to stop getting married.

If that sounds like a selfish statement to make that’s because, well… I’m being selfish.

But here’s the thing: When people complain about hitting 30-years-old and experiencing the Domino effect of their friends getting hitched, the only complaint people take seriously is that of the mammalian species, “Singlesadpandalis,” more commonly known as the, “Ugh-I’m-so-single-and-lonely-and-weddings-are-just-three-hours-of-people-asking-when-I’m-going-to-find-someone.”

And maybe it’s because no one wants to sound like an asshole, (as I’m about to) but no one talks about the other major downside to weddings. Screw the “I’m single” birdsong, that just gives you more time to practice your Chicken Dance do what I always did when I was single: date alcohol. No one can be sad and lonely at an open bar, it’s NOT ALLOWED.

 Instead, my core issue with weddings is twofold:

1. Celebrating human love has become ABSURDLY expensive
2. Referring to point 1, it gives you no time or money to do anything else.

I guess I didn’t really need the entire pretense; I could have just come right out and said that attending an average of a whopping NINE weddings a year means I’ve been too broke to travel.

In my 20s, travel was pretty core to me as a human. If I ever forget this I am reminded in the form of someone I haven’t seen in six years who asks, “What crazy adventures have you been up to lately?”

Except that because I have an onslaught of friends who have all decided to ditch Tinder and put a ring on it, I haven’t been on any crazy adventures. Instead, I’ve been at champagne fountains and Bachelorette parties abroad and in churches and at event halls and event barns across North America.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a COMPLETE jerk, I love the whole, “Celebration of a friend’s love thing.” Don’t mistake this post as being some giant middle finger in the face on my friend’s happiness; that’s THE BEST. I’m all about loving love and I’m never one to turn down an open bar.

It’s just that it’s all starting to feel a tad too much like real life.

I have a sneaking suspicion that despite my best efforts I have landed myself back on this fast moving train of life and I’m going to blink and it will be five years from now and all the bar nights and bad decisions will have morphed into afternoon teas and serious debates about the most gentle brand of breast-pumps.

And before you roll your eyes and l throw some reference to Peter Pan Syndrome my way I GET IT… We all have to grow up sometime.

I revel in the idea of getting older; I just don’t want to equate growing up with the end of adventure.

The more I delve into the world of schedules and weddings and babies the more I miss the days of exploration. I miss waking up in hostels and for a second, not remembering exactly where I am. I miss smelling like earth, and never really knowing where the day will bring me. I miss the human growth that comes with feeling completely uncomfortable and figuring out how I deal with that discomfort.

I’ve always suspected I have the soul of a wanderer. Clues to this fact include but are not limited to the following:

1. I am physically attracted to world maps and globes.

In all seriousness, if I stumble across a really attractive wall map I have an actual bodily reaction that I thought was reserved for my 16-year-old self, lusting after a sweaty Josh Hartnett in Pearl Harbor. Much like if 2001’s Josh walked past me at this moment, there’s something about a good map; I just have to reach out and touch it.

---

2. On a related and equally-disturbing-to-other-people note, I feel what I can only describe as sexual excitement when other people talk about their recent trips abroad.

So next time you’re telling me about that trip to Iceland, don’t mistake those noises I’m making as passive encouragement my friends, I’m getting fucking TURNED ON. It, give or take, goes something like this: “Oh ya tell me where you went. Bali? Yessss!!!!! Namibia, oh so good, say it to me again! Mmmmm, did you say you camped in Argentina? Whisper it to me slowly you filthy little minx.”

---

3. I have on multiple occasions seriously considered becoming a flight attendant.

Just for the staff discounts and the feeling of your daily office never being in one place.

---

4. I think I could happily live in an airport

Just for the people watching potential (and access to 18 different Starbucks).

---

5. I think flights are the only thing I want to spend my money on for the rest of my life.

There is a part of my brain of course that realizes this is wholly irresponsible, but the bigger part of my brain often tells that side of my brain to shut the fuck up and stop contemplating mortgages and square footage because there’s still 51 countries in Africa I haven’t explored yet.

---

The point is, (after all those points) as much as I often try to bend and twist and shove myself into the form of an upstanding, contributing member of Toronto society, there is always this little voice in the back of my head whispering, “Remember how much you love waking up in unknown cities with no idea where the day will take you?”

There was a time in my life that I thought my motivation to travel came from a discontentment of what I had at home. And hey, there was a couple of years in my 20’s where that was probably a major contributing factor.

At 24, I was constantly itchy, busy building and burning relationships in an attempt to satisfy this itch, and then really drawn to the idea of running away instead of mending all the fires I had lit. I was young, and stupid, and careless with other people’s hearts. And I was cocky enough to think I could always find something “better.”

But I’m not 20 anymore, and I don’t consider myself reckless, naïve or cocky (at least not MOST of the time). Instead, I have come to realize that in this lovely world of ours, people place value on different things. Some people choose to own objects. There are those that want to own things and see value in chasing after these things.

And I’ve never thought there was anything wrong with that. I respect the hell out of anyone who is capable of owning anything in downtown Toronto. If you have acquired your own toothbrush and at least seven pairs of acceptably clean and attractive underwear you deserve a resounding applause for nailing this whole adult thing.

But there is also nothing wrong with chasing experiences; there is nothing wrong with collecting stories instead of objects.

It’s easy to allow yourself to feel guilty for not wanting what everyone else wants. For not having a predetermined checklist for life where you start knocking off:

1. Graduate School
2. Get a career
3. Find a significant other
4. Trick that person into thinking they want to spend 50 years with you
5. Lock that shit down

Often it seems that if you don’t want all those things in that exact order you’re cast aside into the abyss of what some so kindly refer to as, “The fucking weirdos.”

IF you rock out life in the most socially acceptable way, you travel in your youth and then you settle down. You build a life for yourself in your own city. You get older and you form and solidify relationships. You develop ties and roots.

But a desire to travel doesn’t come with an expiry date. It’s not like you have to hit a certain age and suddenly feel completely fulfilled by one place and one city and one group of people. You don’t just, “Get it out of your system” and move on.

… Or maybe some people do, who knows, I’m not an expert in the travel psyche. But I do know that for some (i.e. ME) there still a part longs for the elusive, “Other.”

And what a boring place the world would be is we were all searching for the same things; if the same things made all of us happy.

There has to be some space for the fucking wierdos too!

What I know now is:

1. This whole wandering soul thing of mine isn’t a phase and,
2. I don’t feel even vaguely guilty about feeling this way anymore because I know it has nothing to do with a discontentment with my life here.

I love this insane life I lead. I love Toronto and its street and it parks and its patios and its charisma and magnetism. I adore the friends I have here and my boyfriend with his big feet and bigger personality. I even love the horrendously expensive condo we share. Marble countertops are all the rage on King West and quite frankly I’m obsessed with them.

But I also know now- after years of suffering under the weight of gypsy-shame- that you don’t always have to be seeking something else because something is lacking in your life; sometimes the wander is just for wanderings sake.

You wander because of some deeply innate human impulse to explore, with the knowledge that we were never meant to stay in one place for long. Because before all the bricks and concrete and towers we were first and foremost migrators, and therefore there is some part of us that is prone to want to navigate unknown lands.

You wander because there are those of us that will never feel more connected to humanity than in those rare solo moments of being tired and dirty and more uncomfortable than we’ve ever felt.

You wander because you see new places differently than you see your own city; it’s like using a completely different set of eyes. New cities and towns and villages are like a complete attack on the senses. You notice more, absorb more, hear more and smell more because everything is different.

And you wander because you love people, and travelling allows you the opportunity to meet so many humans from so many different backgrounds. And in the end, isn’t life more about what connects us rather than what divides us; in noticing and appreciating the core commonalities that all humans share?

We’re not searching for something better, or something more.

We’re just searching, because that’s what we were built for.

So wander on my little explorers. Or if you can’t afford to, do what I do: just buy a really hip vintage wall map off of Etsy and Google street view your way through other countries.