Ten years ago, I received an e-mail from a young man while I was working at Chateau Montautre. He was 17 at the time and interested in traveling and wwoofing and similar things to what I had been doing. I actually had to pull up the e-mail the other day to remind myself and we had had some correspondence over the years. My friends and I weren't Facebook at this time let alone was there an instagram.
Eventually we became Facebook friends and than instagram friends. I was always aware of his life and curious too as to what he had decided to do with his life. I even remember wondering if I would meet him while he was studying in the US years later.
I posted a selfie while I waited in LAX to depart to Paris mentioning that I would be in Paris. Upon landing, I saw he mentioned we should get together. My first instinct was "of course!" I could get over the jet lag and being sick but then when they lost my luggage and I had to spend the few hours I had not resting and showering but shopping, I began to think it was just an impossible idea. It would have to wait for another time.
I nearly backed out but the way in which he messaged me, I knew we had to meet.
When I recall the story, now back home, I say something along the lines of "when in real life would you be sick, not have slept, not have showered and had no possessions would you go meet a stranger?" That is the beauty of being on the road! How open and willing you are. I have used this story as a reminder to be more open in my day to day life.
When I saw Paul on the street, I felt like I was reuniting with a long lost friend. He didn't seem like a stranger at all. We went to dinner and I tried to put the puzzle pieces together of our connections. He told me such nice things about reading my blog all these years and how it impacted him.
All those years, I wrote as if no one was reading. I bared it all. Mostly for my soul because I needed to write, to record. I no longer write the way I did, being settled, it feels too vulnerable.
I have gotten e-mails over the years from people who have read the blog, people who were inspired to walk the camino or quit their jobs and travel or go visit Chateau Montautre. But still, I was always insecure about my posts. I'd post because I was drawn to write and then I would get nervous about other's opinions of me, I'd wonder if I had written too much or if I sounded ridiculous.
But all these years later, here I was having dinner with such a dynamic, smart man in Paris who has gotten to know me through my blog and I found myself so inspired by him and his enthusiasm for life.
Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book called The Tipping Point in which he talks about different types of people. One such person is a Connector:
Gladwell describes connectors as those people who know many worlds and can link people to networks they did not know existed.
I am 100% a connector. It comes from where I grew up, my travels, the way I talk to people and this blog and social media. I know people all over the world and the connections I make are insane and out of this world at times. I love a connection. I love the fact that you can meet a person that you really mesh with, a fellow traveler, through a blog and then 10 years later through instagram and end up out to dinner in Paris sharing inspiring stories. Ah! I love it. And this is why I call the blog The Road is Life. Once you are out there in the world, magic happens, inspiration happens, connection happens and the world becomes a much smaller more intimate space. Meeting Paul made me realize how important it is to be vulnerable, to do what your heart is telling you to do, like, for me, write my blog. Had I not written, I would have never made this connection.
This week as I returned, I tried to keep that traveling enthusiasm up and ended up in more new soul satisfying scenarios. You never know who you will meet, how you will impact them and how they will impact you. ❤