Shock Cultural

Fairly certain that the grammar in that title is Spanglish, at best.  It is Sunday of the first full weekend I have been home, and everyone says I look different.  Some said it in different ways, but the essence is the same.  I wish everyone could make or take the opportunity to do for themselves what I have just done.  I was thinking about why it always seems that I make such interesting friends when I travel.  And I came up with the following:  1)  We all have in common from the start a sense of adventure; 2)  We are fearless, some to a fault; 3)  We love learning; 4)  We are looking to live like we are dying, to appropriate the lyrics of the new Tim McGraw single.  There was another time in my life that I called myself living like I was dying, because I was convinced that I was destined to be dead by 30 years of age.  That epoch was filled with adventures far more adventuresome than skydiving or Rocky Mountain climbing but in a not-so-good way.  In a more self-destructive way, with the end in mind.  The past several years, my living in the moment has been driven by a more forward-thinking, positive force.  I have reclaimed my spirituality with a far more considerable fervor than even I would ever have guessed possible.  Fervor, not fanaticism.  I am more conscious of my place in the world.  Having almost lost it last year in a car accident, I decided for sure that I have not just a place, but a purpose here in this mad, mad world.  What exactly it is remains in the process of unfolding, but the journey is ever-changing and full of stories.