Journey…what an intriguing word! It has quite a few synonyms: trip, expedition, voyage, cruise, flight, travel, pilgrimage, etc. All these words can be embraced in a single mysterious “journey”—a noun that happened to travel from Latin through Old French and landed in English.

All journeys are simply defined roads we take. Another question is where they lead us…
Turning and crucial life points can emerge solely on a journey. When I write “journey” I don’t necessarily mean “travelling” in its narrow sense. I look at a journey as a self-discovery trip embodied in interactions with other people and the whole world. The process of moving in space and time serves us as a stage for the performance (what Shakespeare called “life”). It is simply a background on which the main action—journey—unfolds.

My life has indulged me in so-called “stationary” journeys” bringing me catharsis experience. Stationary trips are the ones you take without making a step. They take place at night, when you turn off the whole world around, when everyone else is asleep and you finally get to know yourself. It is difficult to disagree with Albert Camus who said that “travel, which is like a greater and a graver science, brings us back to ourselves”.

I remember how I “found myself” through letters I wrote to myself. Their main topics were who I am, what is important to me, which are the atoms and molecules that I am composed of. I do advise everyone to try such a self-discovery journey. Very few of us ever think about who we are and what is our life purpose. An insignificant number of people truly understand and accept themselves completely: with flaws, complexes, fears, emotional impulses and heart wounds. It was a journey of self-discovery that has begun a new stage in my life. In my opinion, a similar journey should be on a must-do list of every person. One should try “talking” to himself about himself via “language” his heart and soul can read. No doubts, there will be plenty of revelations!

Forgiveness journeys have always been challenging but necessary for me. As it goes: you have been offended, your boundless trust has been broken, you feel cynically betrayed and disappointed in humankind. And so you say to yourself: “This is an important lesson of life. I will draw conclusions from it, I will gain priceless experience from the dreadful situation I found myself in. I will build my future happiness on these ruins”. These phrases sound like usual positive affirmations but, in fact, they are effective tools we use fighting back our soul’s purity. It takes lots of courage to resist the temptation of getting angry and vindictive, of hating the whole world for the pain that one single human being had caused you. It is much more difficult to let go of the situation and allow the Higher Power, karma, God (depending on your beliefs) to serve “justice”. Such a pardon journey can last a lifetime. Better if that lifetime won’t be ruined by a road full of righteous anger and a thirst to pay offenders back. A pardon journey is not a walk in the park, but the ultimate destination—spiritual awakening and growth—is worth all the suffering on the way.

A journey-loss can be million times more difficult to accomplish than a journey-pardon. These traumatizing trips are instantaneous, although you live them over and over again. They are like sea waves: rolling back and forth to the shore. The ugly truth is— they never go anywhere. Time does not heal, time dilutes the sharpness of an unbearable pain caused by a loss of your loved one. Psychologists have already structured such a journey of the soul: first—shock and denial, then anger and offense on the person who passed away, afterwards, the awareness of grief and the last stop of a bitter journey-loss is acceptance of the event that cannot be changed. The world will never be the same again. But it will go on. My dad died suddenly, 9 years ago, he was only 51 years old. It is still difficult to accept such an injustice, since nobody should die so early. However, I believe that I have got another guardian angel. In the end, one day we will meet on the other side…

Twice I went on journeys lasting 9 months each. These were trips are designed exclusively for women—pregnancy journeys. Their value reveals at the destination, especially if future parents decided to surprise themselves, having enough will power not to find out a baby’s gender in advance. In this case, pregnancy journey turns into a gambling game: the process of selecting a name that would match the last name, focus on green/yellow clothing instead of pink or blue colored items and the anticipation of a steadily approaching little miracle of life. Let’s omit here certain unpleasant moments during the 9-months trip such as physical weakness, drowsiness, feet swelling, as well as a possible postpartum depression afterwards.

The obvious reason for me not willing to dwell upon all the hardships of pregnancy journeys is the importance of the final reward—a new life! It is much more important than any obstacles along the way. My personal female trips were titled as “extraordinary accomplishments”. I got to “the final stop” without an epidural or a caesarean. My husband honestly admits that he could not have tolerated so much pain as I did. He calls me his hero. And that’s another bonus of such a long woman’s journey—your husband’s respect. It’s well earned. Respect in relationships is far more important than love. I am sure that love will not live long without mutual respect… it might last up to 3 years while hormones are on fire. And, if that’s the case, then it was more of an affection or lust—either one is quite fleeting.

To sum up, pregnancy journeys are worth taking so that after they are over a coming-back-to-shape journey could start. But this is a topic more suitable for a women’s magazine…

Recently, I have been experiencing nostalgia journeys. They start from nowhere and end up quickly. Some time ago I found my old diary, I wrote it when I was a teenager. Rereading it I had a long laugh at the tricks and jokes that we came up with my cousin: who will eat more ice cream in a day, who will not sleep longer at night, phone pranks and much more of a stupid and funny stuff. How many little lives we lived during the holidays: autumn, winter, spring, and, of course, summertime…I will never forget flu season quarantine from school—it was a nice bonus to the winter entertainment: skating and sleighing. And suddenly—tears in my eyes. I am mourning a long-passed childhood. Nowadays, my cousin and I rarely communicate as we live on different continents. But sometimes I fiercely desire to become a daredevil girl again riding her bike through fields and forests who fears nothing… nothing except for the day when the summer is over and the fall knocks on the door.

By the way, trips with a taste of nostalgia acquire a realistic coloring in my life: all because I live in Philadelphia, but often miss my dearest Kyiv: there is my place of power. But then again, time is constantly flying by… As an immigrant, I seem to have sunk between both realities: the one I live in the USA and another one happening in Kyiv without me. I still don’t feel quite at home across the Atlantic Ocean, but neither am I as comfortable as I used to be in Ukraine. So much has changed… These nostalgic journeys prove us the fact that a person is a highly adaptive creature. Three years have not turned me into an American, but influenced my worldview, opened new horizons, let me meet people of all races and religions. I continue to stubbornly assure myself that eventually I will be enjoying my elder years at the cottage house near Kyiv, but nobody knows what is there in store for us. Journeys often end up not as we planned them to in the beginning.

The vast majority of people tend to plan their lives thoroughly: first school, then college, later work, family, children, again work-vacation-work-vacation, some more work up to the retirement, and, finally, the well-deserved rest. However, sometimes plans and schemes don’t work. Whether we want it or not, life is full of surprises!

As for actual trips, my favorite is a one-day study journey. I strongly agree with the traveler-writer Bill Bryson, who admitted that he “could spend his life arriving each evening in a new city.” I also like choosing a city on the map, buying a ticket and starting my own journey research without any tourist guides. The city will open up to you if you are ready for new adventures. That’s how I met Lviv, Odesa, Kamyanets-Podilsky and several towns in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. You never know where the road will take you, but you are guaranteed to get truly unforgettable memories of your 24 hour-long trip.

Risk and journey are like twin brothers: inextricably linked. Sometimes it feels great to get lost in the right direction…only to find yourself again and realize that our whole life is one interesting and unpredictable journey that should be fully lived. And when you turn some 95 years, you would enjoy looking through family albums sitting by the fireplace on quiet winter night and preparing for the next, the longest journey of all—your trip to eternity…