‘Wonderlust’ is not a word.  It does not have a definition. Let’s change that.

Originally, when I started this series, I wanted to talk about the physical desire to wander in part one and the emotional or mental desire to wonder in part two as if they were two sides to the same coin. This changed when I wrote part one and realized that any sort of desire has to start in the mind and the two sides to the same coin were actually the same side to the same coin.  Our bodies cannot crave new experiences. If my body experiences something new, say hunger for instance, it relays to my brain that it wants something, anything, that it will be able to break down and turn into energy for it to continue to survive.

Our brain is the part of us that craves, and our mind is the manager of the filing cabinet that has to sort out those cravings. Let me boil this thought process down into a thought: “Mmm, hungry, body wants fuel, need something… sweet.  Chocolate. I crave chocolate. Bought chocolate. Ate chocolate. Body now has fuel”.  Chocolate wasn’t our body’s choice, and it wasn’t a physical craving.  We told ourselves that we wanted chocolate because we like chocolate.

So instead of breaking up the desire to ‘wander’ and the desire to ‘wonder’, I am letting a few themes leak through by not creating a solid line between the two main ideas. You’ll see some of those concepts from part one in this, part two, and probably even part three and four.

On we go.

When I looked up “wonder” I found several instances online, google definitions, dictionary.com, Webster’s and so on, where wonder got mixed reviews.  Sometimes the word meant a desire to learn, other times it meant astonishment and awe. I pulled all of my unmarked sources together and came up with a definition that I will use as a basis for the following topic:

Wonder-  The feeling of curiosity and awe one gains when encountering the abnormal or new.

It’s not perfect, but it gets the job done.  The second part of our new word is ‘lust’. A lot of the internet decided a long time ago that this word related to sexual activity and desire for that activity.  I chose to approach this word, the second half of our new word, as an extreme craving. A craving that is strong, but not overbearing. In other words, you can overcome lust. I have confidence in you.

When you cram these two ideas together you get something along the lines of (drumroll): The extreme desire to experience the new or abnormal to gain a feeling of awe and understanding.

I like that.  I like that a lot.  I wasn’t so sure where that all was going to lead, but we ended up in a good spot. In fact, I went back and bold faced our definition of Wonderlust just now. You may have noticed that already, clever reader.

 

As much as I have experienced wanderlust in my life, it has always come with a partnered feeling of wonderlust.  Take for instance my trip to London last year (I told you it would come up later). I desired to experience a city across the ocean where I would be isolated from friends and family and plopped down into an environment that was not only completely strange to me, but completely new. The food, the people, streets, buildings, trains, and even the little paper “shut” signs on the cafe doors were something I had never experienced before. The wonder I felt in this environment grew and grew and nearly overwhelmed me.  In fact, it did overwhelm me at times and I had to take breaks and hide away in the safety of my rented room. I had no idea that I would be filled with such wonder.  I had no idea a person could be filled with such wonder.

When I made the decision to start planning the trip, I had a set of cravings that I figured I would be satisfying; the desire to talk to strangers, eat strange food, walk new streets, breath different air.  I had no idea that these cravings would be over-filled.  In my previous experience the need to talk to strangers would be satisfied by chatting to the girl working the register in the cafe on my way to work. Before my trip to London my cravings were small, but when I fed them this incredible amount of new and awe inspiring information, they grew fat.  I have fat cravings now.

The feeling of wonderlust grew inside me from the relative size of a teenager to a young adult in the span of nine short days. And when I returned to Alaska, all I could think was: where can I go next?

I’ve heard of this happening to people who have come back from vacations before, so I kind’ve expected it. People return home and feel that their normal lives are now mundane and boring and so they trudge through on the lookout for the next vacation.  The way I understand this is that people take breaks from not enjoying life to enjoy life. Why would anyone want to do that?  Why would someone choose to live in a city they hate with people they can’t stand just to cover the expense of a week or two a year where they can feel like they’re living their real lives? These are rhetorical questions, of course. But I appreciate your enthusiasm.

In my case, I turned the wonderlust I felt after going to Europe into my every day.  I threw out job applications to strange parts of the U.S. like they were leaflets for the grunge band opening for an even crappier band at the dive bar in that bad part of town.  I made finding new and awe inspiring people and places my life, not the break from it.

And that’s why I was willing to take the pay cut and move to California.  I had no friends or family and barely a place to stay, but I knew that it would be an adventure and I knew it would satisfy my wonderlust.  If only temporarily.

Thanks, as always, for reading.  I hope you enjoyed part two of this series. If you did, look for part three, coming soon! And if you didn’t, look for part three, coming soon.  It may change your mind!