When exactly does a journey end?

If you are looking to go somewhere new or better, ideally you find yourself in a different place, put down your stuff, and start about the task of living a new life in your new location. Joseph Campbell’s famous “hero’s journey” structure includes The Return- our brave hero, having crossed the border of the known into the unknown on their grand quest, returns across that border to the world they knew significantly changed.

Maybe they brought the “Magic Medicine,” as Campbell calls it, to solve a problem and the quest of seeking and finding the Medicine was only the first (albeit largest) part. Tripitaka, having successfully reached India and received the sutras from the Buddha along with his assistants Monkey, Pigsy, and Sandy, must now complete the quest by returning to China with them. Frodo, having seen the One Ring destroyed and the quest complete, returns home to free and rebuild the Shire.

For Tripitaka and Frodo, though, that still wasn’t the end of their stories. Tripitaka and his friends are magically whisked back to India after finishing their delivery and receive their ultimate rewards: Buddhahood for Tripitaka and Monkey, and sainthood for Pigsy and Sandy as their undertakings on the journey expunged the sins that set them on the road in the first place. Frodo, forever wounded and traumatized by his quest and prolonged exposure to the evil of the One Ring, realizes that he “can’t go home again” and leaves Middle Earth to seek peace and healing in the uttermost West.

Returning home but returning differently is just as much a journey as finding yourself in a new place- you set down old ways and start the process of living again as someone new.

Journeys also take the time they take. Some personal transformations can take place in a matter of moments, others take years or decades- and even those are only smaller moments in a lifelong saga.

January of this year found me frustrated, exhausted and discouraged. I felt haunted by grievance and self-gaslighting as a job I thought I should have been proud of began to take more and more of me. My health and fitness, already worn down by previous years, got worse. My goals fell by the wayside, and writing began to feel more like bashing my brain against a brick wall every week rather than creating anything new and pretending like I was making a dent. It took reaching out to others to remind me of the kind of writing I’d do that I truly enjoyed– writing about food, the way it made me and others feel, and the stories that get woven through and around kitchen tables, behind lines, and between the legs of barstools.

I bit off my ego and found a new job- one that would allow me peace and productivity over the title of “chef”. It would allow me security over promises and plans. That was the first big change. A glimmer of life from the darkness that reminded me I wasn’t licked yet.

Work at the winery has had its trials and challenges to be sure, but it has still been what I needed it to be: a place to do the work I love well, with respect and security while I decided where next.

Thinking back on this year, though, that wasn’t the journey I’ve really been on. That was getting myself to a space and a situation where I could begin the real quest I was on- returning to myself. The external was sorting itself out- if I wanted to get anywhere, I’d have to quest for the internal. Find the “Magic Medicine” needed to fix myself and get back to where I was before the last several years when everything was dark.

A lot of that journey has happened (or really just come to a head) in the last few months.

I’ve had to examine my part in conflicts, my biases, my weaknesses, and my preconceptions repeatedly because external security gave me space to realize that my lived actions were not in line with my ideals. I have flaws and triggers that I know cause me to act poorly- knowing them, I can go into the future managing them.

The cultural and socio-political hell that has been happening amid the Israel-Hamas War forced me to accept that I never really belonged to the groups I thought I did. I just “fit in” for the time being, and that status could be (and was) revoked the moment I spoke or believed in deviation from the group. The anger, rejection, grief, and confusion that came remain good but harsh teachers in the art of belonging first to myself, which in turn requires the authenticity, responsibility, and self-ownership I’d abdicated over the last few years while just trying to survive.

Finally, I received several hard lessons about what truly matters and what I value most. Nearly losing my mother-in-law and stepping up for her family pulled me away from doomscrolling through life. Reaching out to old friends when everything felt isolating reminded me to put my faith in individuals first, not groups or causes. Perhaps most lately, the most occasional words of kindness and welcome reminded me that I still have stories to tell and I am good at telling them, so long as I can be honest with myself about where they will go.

The journey of this year has found me in both “returning home changed” AND in a new place, looking toward life in a new world.

Thank you all for sticking with me on the trip, and let’s keep going- I have a feeling something great is coming along soon.

Stay Classy,