I've started to really question WHY I like to travel and WHY I enjoy leaving the city that became home. When I started to ask myself these questions, confessions escaped. It's not pretty, and I did not intend to write solely about me and my issues, but vulnerability requires honesty. So thanks to my musical friend, Explosions in the Sky, for getting vulnerability out of my heart, words written down, and the tears flowing.
Why I Enjoy Leaving, Why I Enjoy Traveling,
and the Confessions that Follow:
I ENJOY TRAVELING BECAUSE:
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| At one of the many coffee shops in Chiang Mai, Thailand |
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| Dropping off a new Kiwi friend, Josh, in Bologna, Italy |
-Traveling helps you learn--it opens up your eyes and your heart to the cultures and customs in a new country/area.
-Traveling levels the playing field-- You realize that people are living their lives the way they've always known, yet it's different than the way you live yours but it seamlessly works for them. They have different struggles, different values, different 9-5 jobs, yet their days keep on moving. Just like ours.
Confession: I believe that I become the fullest version of myself when I'm traveling. I feel my freest. I'm open to possibilities and welcome delays in my plans. I'm full with excitement and even the smallest and newest of things brings me happiness.
I ENJOY LEAVING BECAUSE:
-Leaving lets you escape crappy weather, and when it's the worst and coldest weather ever, I just want to be on the beach and in warmth which is where I truly belong. This is probably the only good excuse for leaving.-Leaving lets you avoid rejection. I try and be intentional with people and when that isn't reciprocated, or when someone bails for better plans, I'm hurt, alone, and wondering why I'm not traveling.
Confession: It's easier for me to adjust to a completely new culture and custom than to re-build a friend group in Nashville after there have been so many drastic changes and many friendships ended because...
Confession: I don't believe that people want to continue knowing me.
So much stems from childhood, but I remember being "uninteresting" to my dad after I turned 12 years old. He just didn't want to know me after that. That has carried into my adult life, and I most likely perpetuate it, but it's still a big fear of mine.
Confession: I struggle to fit in to my own culture.
After getting chewed up and spit out of the Honduran culture because I couldn't be thin enough, pretty enough, woman enough, speak Spanish well enough, or be a good enough girlfriend, sister, daughter, or friend, it's hard to feel like I fit in here too.
Confession: I don't feel like people want to get to know me the way I want to get to know them.
I really want to try and meet people where they're at--physically, emotionally, spiritually--and try and do things that interest them more than myself, yet connections have been hard for me to come by since moving back to Nashville more than a year ago.
Confession: I don't think I've fully integrated back into Nashville culture after living in latin america for a couple years.
I experienced an insurmountable amount of betrayal in Honduras between relationships with my ex-boyfriend, my dad and his wife, and others in my ex's family. Yet when I came back to Nashville, absolutely no one knew about my personal tragedy. I was forced to go through the hardest experience of my life completely alone. No one was aware of the deepest pain I've ever had nor that I was in the darkest period of my life. It has been a downward slide and an uphill battle where I feel like I have only now plateaued to be able to see the view of possibilities for my life.
Simply traveling to "leave" is not a good or healthy decision because it usually involves a form of negativity. My wanderlust has encompassed my heart and my mind, and I'll admit, traveling is my comfort. I always await my next adventure, but I keep praying that those adventures will happen more closer to my door step and not always accompanied with a plane ticket.