Ch. 14- The Lessons I Learned— Coming Home to CO & The Paradox of Perceived Error.

Traveling as a Tool

Traveling.
Yeah… who would have thought this was a tool?

Most of us hear the word and think vacation. Escape. Leisure. A pause from life. But the way I traveled—volunteering, trading, moving without a net—did the opposite. It broke me away from the norm and cracked me open in ways I didn’t expect. In about four months, I feel like I fast-tracked years of life lessons.

That kind of traveling humbled the fuck out of me.

I got really sick—more than once. I went through heartbreak. I lost my luggage and my license. There were moments I genuinely thought I wasn’t going to make it. And somehow, threaded through all of that, I experienced the most transitory moments of peace I’ve ever known. I met wildly unique, beautiful souls. I watched how different cultures celebrate joy in their own quiet, intimate ways. I was deeply alone at times—but I wouldn’t have done it any other way.

It might help to read each country’s story to fully understand the timeline, but eventually I reached a point where I was simply done. I wanted to go home. And when that clarity arrived, it was obvious where “home” was for the next chapter: Colorado. The cool glacier rivers. The mountains. They had been calling again.

The Paradox of Perceived Error

I still don’t fully understand what I’ve come to call the paradox of perceived error. I’m not sure it’s a real term—but it feels potent enough to name.

Life does this funny thing: it gives you what you think you want. I thought I wanted travel. I chased clouds. I checked off bucket-list dreams. Maybe it was ego, maybe it wasn’t—but internally, I believed those experiences would bring total happiness. That they would solve something.

They didn’t.

They brought wonder. Beauty. Expansion. But they didn’t fix my internal world. What they did instead was deepen my spirit and widen my eyes—forcing me to go inward and face what was already there. Traveling became therapy. An unconventional one, but therapy nonetheless.

So what’s the paradox?

It was an error to believe that something external would cure me. But it’s a perceived error, because there were never real problems to begin with—only the ones we create to stay asleep to the truth that happiness exists right here, in this moment.

And the paradox part?
Even though I didn’t need to take that trip to find peace, I still had to experience it for myself to understand that it wasn’t the ultimate answer.

Lessons Without Regret

It’s the same with relationships. Each one teaches us something. Does that mean you go back to your ex? Or that they were a true mistake? You might think so—but what did you learn?

That’s the paradox again.

Life is full of them. And honestly, that’s where the spiritual vitamins are.

You can plug almost anything into the paradox of perceived error.

So when you find yourself asking, Am I making a mistake? Am I on the wrong path?—remember this. You are not an error. The mind is the thing that perceives error. Everything else is a lesson wearing that disguise.

That doesn’t mean you ignore your heart or stay in situations that drain your life force. The ego will try to justify that (it’s very good at it). It means you listen deeply, choose what adds to your life, and avoid causing harm—to yourself or others. Harmony is something we cultivate internally, and from that place, love and happiness arrive naturally.

Feeling Everything Again

There was a moment—three days long—when one of the darkest mental states visited me. I felt nothing. Absolute emptiness. And I was terrified.

I wanted so badly to feel again.

And now here I am, tearing up.

I don’t think I’ll ever get to the core pit of this apple. I wish I could take everyone with me to feel that time. I know I’ll never experience it again in the same way.

And maybe that’s the point.

Love shows up in so many forms. You don’t always recognize it while it’s happening—sometimes only once it’s gone. So live in this moment. For the sake of love.

I can say now that I’ve lived a rich life. It took a lot of resistance, a lot of hair-pulling, for the universe to drag me toward the death of myself—so I could finally hear what my heart had been saying all along.

I fall in love with people, places, and things all the time.

Because love is abundant.

Now, I live in the mountains in a grounded town. I am at home here for now. The “mountain hippies” showed me that I can speak freely, I can dance freely, we share community meals, and we trade our belongings. The people here —care.

We care deeply and youre not weird for being that way.

I’ve learned to express my trauma in raw ways. It’s normal to lay in the sun naked crying in the backyard here or process roadkill with ceremony.

I write constantly and perform poetry at local events, ones I wrote on my journey.

I love attending the town’s dance events - I get to move around how I want to, make sound, and be a complete weirdo.

When I speak on something heavy, people listen and reflect.

I was absolutely meant to come here and learn how to reparent myself here.

The people, the places, all of it was meant to bring me here.