10. Always arriving
I remember wanting to study abroad ever since high school. Though I never experienced traveling outside of the continent, I had a knowing feeling that it is a part of me and would make me happy. I felt this way for years. It wasn’t until I was at the gates, waiting to board my flight to HK, where I first wondered...what if I was wrong? How could I have so much conviction about something I had no experience in? Luckily, I wasn’t wrong. From the second I landed, everything just flowed naturally. I found my way around, made friends...I was so comfortable exploring a foreign country, I practically felt at home.
Since then, I traveled internationally almost every year for about a month. I had big plans for 2020 but then Covid happened. Borders closed and my passport expired. Though I spend most of my days thinking about traveling, I haven’t gone overseas for 2+ years. Now that the borders have loosened up, I’m ready to make my move. Except one thing...I developed new feelings and started doubting my travel skills and how much I’d enjoy it. I worried that I wouldn’t know how find my way around the way I used to. I was scared that Covid made it unsafe to travel. I wondered if I’d get lonely. This was all new. When I was younger, solo traveling enticed me. What’s changed? Maybe its because, this time, going solo was less of a choice? With so many of my friends tied down in the US due to work or family obligations, not many can go stay in another country with me for 2+ months. After a couple months of doubting myself, I realized that I never had a hard time making friends in new places. I spent most of 2021 hopping from state to state, and more often than not, I ran into friends and met new people wherever I went. That’s always been the case. Why would it change now?
Fear is such a silly thing. It starts with a simple thought, and most of the time, it never becomes anything more than that. But somehow, we manage to give it life...so much so that it paralyzes us from living. How can fear feel so real when it’s literally the opposite...it’s not real. It’s in our heads.
It’s wild that your reality is purely based on how you see the world and how you feel about yourself. If you’re not feeling confident about something, you might not shoot your shot even if everyone knows you’ll make it. If you’re scared of something, no matter what everyone else says, this fear becomes your truth and impacts how you navigate the world. I guess that’s how we get in our own way. I don’t want to be my own mental block. Though there are parts of me that get scared, I am challenging myself to shift my focus and remember how traveling has always served me. I’ve never been someone who became overly attached to one place. Saying goodbye to friends and fam to travel has never been a sad experience. Or if it was, its always offset by the excitement I feel about exploring a new place. These feelings are unique to me and I genuinely believe they come to me for a reason...I’m meant to travel. I’ve never feel like I’m departing. I always feel like I’m arriving.
