And here it is at last...

Sleep cycle fucked up, mind's all abuzz and scant hours away from starting the two day voyage over the Pacific to Japan and points thereafter; Malaysia, Singapore and Cambodia. Everything is pretty much packed and ready to go, last minute additions notwithstanding. Hard to believe that once again, I am bound overseas to Asia - to a place that has always held magic and wonder for me. A place to remember who I once was and who I am now. Almost could say it's the one place where I finish my walkabouts, finally meeting the person I've become in the intervening years.

Waxing poetic at the moment does nothing to diminish the excitement - does nothing to diminish the stress either. But things really are different now - more so than they have been, for longer than I can remember. I don't go with a heavy heart carrying sorrows uncounted. I go with optimism for the future and for the joys and happiness that life can offer you when you are open to all possibilities. I no longer dread going abroad and finding aspects of myself that I didn't know were there, that I don't like. And more importantly, I don't dread the return as I once did of old. Things simply are no longer the same. The ties that once bound me to that part of my story are no more. No more.

And so dear readers, I go, once again, out onto the great blue marble, entranced by all the wonders I am sure to encounter. The adventure is in discovering the unknown and there is magic out there.