I travel not to escape my life — I’ve grown rather fond of it, more so than ever before — but to discover a version of myself I haven’t met yet.
There is something about stepping into the unfamiliar that loosens the threads of who we think we are.
Somewhere between the borders of a foreign country, a toothless smile that needs no translation, a landscape so breathtaking it brings tears to our eyes, or a fruit whose taste awakens a memory we didn’t know we carried, something shifts.
The world surprises us, and in doing so, reveals something about ourself.
And sometimes, in the middle of a place where nothing is familiar — where we don’t know the language, the customs, or even what tomorrow will look like — we feel an inexplicable sense of belonging.
As if, for a fleeting moment, all the wandering has brought us exactly where we were meant to be.
Perhaps that is what I travel for.
Not to find another life, but to meet the parts of myself that only the world beyond my doorstep can awaken.
And every now and then, somewhere far from home, I discover the curious, beautiful feeling of being exactly where I belong.
