I would love, love, love to travel to Giza and see the great pyramids. Egyptian history and lore have always been appealing to me.  My mother introduced me to Pharaoh Rameses II when I was  child and I was hooked ever since.  Certainly I learned about Tut and Cleopatra, but then I met Nefertiti and Nefertari, Amun and Akhenaten. On my first trip to France, seeing the Egyptian Antiquities at the Louvre was just as breathtaking as seeing the Winged Victory and the Mona Lisa (it always comes back to France, doesn’t it?).  I studied hieroglyphics and could write my name and a few basic words without benefit of a guide. I drew the Eye of Ra on all of my book covers and on the inside of my all of my journals.  Years later, I would have it tattooed onto my back.  

Traveling to Egypt didn’t cross my mind until I was much older.  For all the books I’d read, all of the images I’d created in my mind, not once did I see myself in those scenes.  Travel to Egypt didn’t seem realistic or even possible.  It wasn’t a vacation locale, at least not in the traditional sense.  When spring break rolls around, most people go to Daytona, Miami Beach or the Caribbean. Somehow the reality of my life intersected with my daydreams of Cairo when I was in college.  My junior year, an opportunity presented itself in the form of Fulbright Scholarship Applications.   I had applied to study journalism at the University of Cairo for a semester.  I toiled over that application, securing letters of recommendation, transcripts, and amassing a writing portfolio that was borne out of a desire to see the sun sink with a sigh behind desert sands.  I mailed that package, thick with my words and my future and I waited.  I was accepted into the program.  I didn’t get the scholarship.  My parents, though well intentioned, didn’t think it was the best move to send their very American daughter to a very Muslim country all by her lonesome.  No funds. No program. No trip.

I wonder how my life would have been different if I had had that experience.  There are many layers to that onion, for sure.  The educational piece, the career piece, the relationship piece and the self-introspection piece.  Maybe I’d be a multi-lingual international journalist reporting for CNN, sharing desk space and prime time with Anderson Cooper  (hmmmmm). Maybe I’d be an American ex-pat living abroad, smoking cigarettes, writing really bad poetry and living in hostels (that is SO unlikely; if it doesn’t come with a key card and room service, I’m not interested).  Maybe I’d be single, living at home with my parents because after my trip to Egypt, I decided to join the Peace Corps and live a life of volunteerism (again, highly doubtful. Have you met my father? “Free ride” isn’t in his vocabulary).

Of course, on the flip side, had I gone, I wouldn’t have had the benefit of the experience that make me who I am now.  And again, I stop mourning who I was and embrace who I am.

Although, it wouldn’t hurt to step back from that embrace with a packed suitcase, some plane tickets and an idling car on the curb.