Why West Is the Best

So, last post I said I'd explain why I think going West is the Best. To try to start to explain, I have to ask you this: have you ever been to a place that just makes your heart full and you can't really explain why, but you just feel like that's where you belong, and that's where you've always been meant to be? Or a direction to head in you prefer and can't explain why, but you just feel like you're heading the right way?

For me, that special "place" is Montana, and that special "direction" is west. The first time I went west was on a high school graduation trip - my two aunts (both unmarried with no kids, so they have always done a lot with their nieces and nephews) take each niece/nephew, when they graduate high school, to any place in the contiguous United States that they pick. One of my cousins went to NYC to see a show on Broadway, one chose California, one chose New Jersey (big NASCAR fans), my brother chose Washington, D.C. - and I chose Yellowstone. I think I got the most out of my trip - one aunt lives in Colorado so she drove to my graduation (I live north of Chicago), and then all three of us drove to Yellowstone. But it wasn't just a one-stop trip; we stopped at the Badlands, Wall Drug (South Dakota), Grand Teton National Park (we actually did a river-raft tour), Wyoming, Colorado. It was my first time in my adult life seeing prairies and mountains that were jagged and looked like they could cut the sky.

That trip was so special. The whole time I felt at peace, like I was where I belonged. It felt wrong to go home afterwards, and for awhile after I got home I felt out of place. Have you ever experienced anything like that?

I wonder why people can feel so connected to a place they've only been once or twice. I personally think it has something to do with reincarnation. Before I go on, I am not a religious person, I describe myself as spiritual. I believe there has to be some energy, something greater than we can imagine; that we're not just on this earth and once we die our energy dies too. So! Reincarnation. I think that maybe we feel connected to certain places because - maybe in another life - we lived there or died there. For me, something that supports my theory is that I sometimes feel disconnected with myself - I don't think I look the way I should or dress the way I should. It's not that I am unhappy with myself; I just feel like how I am on the inside, isn't represented how it should be on the outside. And I think that's because my soul has not connected entirely with my body. To me, this idea is incredible. It makes so much sense to me that the reason I connect with mountains or the reason that I can't describe how happy I get when I travel west is that, in a past life, that's where I lived or that's where I explored to. There's something about mountains so tall they loom over me and make me feel small but powerful that makes my heart so full it feels like it's going to explode.

And people say, well, what about Colorado? And Colorado is beautiful, but it's not my special place. Go and find yours, because life's too short to feel like you don't belong where you are.

~the Mountains are Calling and I Must Go~