Travel is a powerful way to mark transition.
All we need to do is look at honeymoons that newly weds embark upon. It’s an opportunity for them to transition from living two single lives into a new one of union. Of taking time away from family and friends to be alone just the two of them. A time of deepening communion and laying a foundation for a new life.
The experience of a ‘gap year’ is traditionally used by school leavers to transition from high school to young adulthood. Grey nomads hit the road with their caravans in tow as they move from working life into retirement.
For me, my trip to Italy in 2015 marked a transitional process from being married to divorced. Two years after my husband and I separated I had saved enough to take myself for a few weeks to travel through Italy. My first overseas trip alone. It was scary in many moments yet as the days progressed I settled into myself in a whole new way. Its a beautiful world regardless of what one is going through personally.
In a somewhat interesting Universal play out my divorce papers were finalised in the courts whilst I was away. I left married and arrived back into the country divorced. The Universe leaving her mark on the importance of this trip.
I feel undertaking a travel journey during or following a separation and/or divorce can be a beautiful and healing process. The opportunity to take self away facilitates a transformative journey enabling one to reconnect with self in a whole new way. It enables the transition from ‘us’ to ‘I’.
