My Love Affair With Traveling

Home doesn't have to necessarily be a childhood house. Home can be a feeling, a person, a moment, a thing. You know you're home when your heart is at ease. You feel like the weight of the world has been lifted off your shoulders. Everything just feels okay.

I feel most at home when I travel. A weird concept, right? I can be far, far away, but still feel at home. It's because I'm more in tune with myself when I travel. I'm in tune with my body, mind, and nature. Going to a new place, gaining new knowledge and fresh perspectives, that's a feeling of home. It's a home within oneself.

There's something about traveling that I crave. I can't get enough of it. From the restless nights leading up to my departure to the foggy morning drive to the airport, when it feels like the whole world is asleep but me. A front-row seat in the clouds watching the sun paint beautiful colors across the sky. Airports have always been intriguing to me. Everyone is on their schedule. Everyone is going to a different place, for a different reason, with a different agenda. But for a split moment, your paths overlap.

There's so much beauty in meeting people when you travel. Everyone has different backgrounds and different experiences. You never truly know what someone has gone through in life. You have never walked a day in someone else's life. There's so much beauty in learning from someone.

I'm a very anxious person. Traveling helps me get out of my comfort zone. I want to go new places, try new foods, meet new people, try things I normally wouldn't. I think in the process of trying new things you discover more about yourself. It's a feeling of freedom from within your inner demons. Your inner thoughts. The voice in your head telling you, you're not good enough or pretty enough: why would I listen to the voice in my head when everything around me is showing me something different?

The rainbow after its storms reminds me that there's so much beauty after darkness. When I'm in the ocean, I'm reminded of how small me and my problems are. The ocean is beautiful yet so terrifying. Kind of like life, but the waves will continue to meet the shoreline day after day. When I'm hiking I'm reminded that I will never see the view at the top if I don't start somewhere. Kind of like life.

It's scary to try new things, it's nerve-racking but it's that first step that's the hardest and the rest will fall into place. There's so much beauty in the world. There are so many lessons to be taught. Views that need to be seen. Waves that need to be surfed. Mountains that need to be climbed. Foods that need to be tried and so many people to meet. There's more to you as an individual than the voices in your head. Finding home within yourself is knowing that no matter where you are, who you're with, or what you're doing, you're at peace.