I was hesitant to write this post at first because this is a travel blog, but I realized that travel has played such a key part in my life, and if there is even one person out there who can relate to my experience, then I should write this anyway.
And, well, it’s my blog so I can write whatever I want 🙂
Introduction
Growing up, I was told by adults everywhere that my 20’s are going to be the best part of my life, to enjoy them as much as I can because ‘it all goes downhill from there’, how in 40 or 50 years, I’ll look back on my 20’s and reminisce about how easy life was, how clear and simple everything seemed to be, and that I’ll wish I could turn back the clock to that time.
But honestly, that hasn’t been my experience.
At 24, I’m almost half way through the “best decade of my life,” and I have found it to be the most difficult years to navigate so far.
After making it through the dreaded teenage years where hormones make your brain a little spazy (sorry Mom and Dad), I thought the worst was over. I was ready to take on my 20’s – years full of self-discovery and decisions that would set the stage for the rest of my life, and that would be that.
While I wasn’t entirely wrong, it has proved to be far more complicated than I thought it would be.
It is safe to say that my college years (or university years for you Europeans) were the worst in my life. In many ways, the particularly unique set of circumstances I found myself in and the experiences that followed in many ways broke me down to my core, stripping me of all preconceived notions of who I was and should be. But a blessing that came out of this time is that I have been given, albeit somewhat forcibly, the opportunity to rebuild myself from the ground up into someone that I like.
Another way to think about this is when you break a bone, you have to make sure it is reset properly before it heals so that it doesn’t set all twisted, else it has to be rebroken and reset – an experience I’m sure no one enjoys.
It is the same process when it comes to building yourself, only you are the person in charge of creating the mold for yourself to settle into.
Setting the Scene
I have been travelling to Europe since I was 12 years old. Somehow, my parents let a 12 year old get on a plane with 40 other random students and travel around western Europe for three weeks with no cellphone. How cool is that!
The good news is that it went great! I had a fantastic time, my parent’s missed me but survived the experience, and my life was forever changed. From that point on, all I wanted to do was travel. I went on several trips with school, friends, and family. One notable trip was while I was still in high school. I took a three week backpacking trip across Scotland with my parents and sister, where we fell in love with the country. This was when I realized I just had to live in Europe one day…but that was something to tackle later.
The next time I really stressed my parents out with my travelling aspirations was a few years later during college. COVID had finally let up enough that the world was starting to open back up, but my personal life was horrible. I was so lost, so broken down. I was in the middle of my physics degree, running a large physics organization on my campus, working several part time jobs on and off campus, and felt like I was costantly losing. I had been throwing myself into all of those activities just to survive the experiences of my personal life during that time, and I felt like a complete failure.
When summer came and I couldn’t even hold a basic hotel receptionist job in my hometown because of how destroyed my mental health was, I needed to do something to prove to myself that I wasn’t broken. So, I took a trip.
In hindsight, it probably wasn’t the safest idea. I was taking my first-ever solo trip and had chosed to go to Puerto Rico – a country where I later found out that I had no phone service (an oversight on my part), where I didn’t speak the language (I could speak basic Spanish with my Uber driver), and a place where I had never been in my life nor did I know anybody there.
I probably almost gave my parents an ulcer.
Learnings
I learned so much about myself during my two week Puerto Rican stint. It was genuinely such a profound experience.
I learned that being alone was very healing for me. It provided me time to really sink into my own thoughts and feelings without the distractions of others.
I learned that I wanted to become bilingual. Knowing more than one language changes the way you view the world and how you empathize with others.
I learned that writing is not only therapeutic for me, but really fun. It helped me really get in touch with what I was feeling and thinking. Putting it down on the page made it more tangible – I could see bits of myself more clearly. I decided I would write a book one day describing my experience growing up as an independent woman in the US, surviving the difficult personal events of my college years, and how I learned to heal from it.
I learned that travelling the world is possible, and not nearly as difficult as people seem to think it is. I started exploring all different aspects of travel – budgeting, planning, approaching strangers, becoming comfortable in new environments.
I learned that I had a level of pride that was stopping me from fully embracing the experience. I had to teach myself how to put my ego aside in order to try speaking in a different language even for something as simple as ordering food at a restaurant or navigate public transportation. This is something that I still have to intentionally focus on every time I go to a new non-english-speaking country.
Overall, I learned that I could still do challenging things, I could solve problems, I could take care of myself – I was so much more capable than I had thought at the time. And, most importantly, that led to the conclusion that I wasn’t broken.
Moving Forward
My Puerto Rican solo trip taught me so much about myself and about travelling that travel has become one of the main avenues for me to stay in touch with myself as I grow.
This is part of what led me to move to the UK after I graduated college. Not only was there a masters program that I wanted to complete, but most of the appeal of that program was the location. Next month will be 2 years since I moved, and while there are times that I struggle with homesickness, I know that it was the right decision for me.
I still feel lost sometimes. I have friends who are buying houses and getting married, some who are studying, and yet others who are still looking for their path forward. There’s societal pressure to have it all figured out, find the one while focusing on yourself, balance a corporate career with a perfect gym routine, eat super clean and healthy but still indulge, be in therapy for your mental health, travel the world, prioritize your family and friends, get your own place but save for your future self, become an activist, and more. Jeez. How can you fit all of that in to a couple of years?
And yet as I’ve travelled, I have realized that I don’t actually care about adhering to any of the above pressure. Being ‘healthy’ looks different for every person. As long as I’m the healthy that works for me, who cares?
My path is unique to other people’s – what does it matter if I move every 6 months? I’m trying out new things until I find what’s right for me.
So what if I haven’t found ‘the one’ yet? If I find someone eventually (and that’s a becoming a bigger ‘if’ every day in this economy), then that’s only my business, not anyone else’s. And I’m enjoying my life as it is right now, so why bother trying to fix something that ain’t broke?
These are examples of the mindset that I’ve developed in recent years, and it genuinely is a direct result of travelling. I’ve met so many people all in different stages of life with a range of different experiences and outlooks on what their life should be. And I’ve really come to realize that it truly isn’t anyone else’s business. Whatever you think is right for you, is the only thing that will make you happy in the end. If my life doesn’t align with what people think it should look like, then that only sucks for them. Maybe my 20’s are the worst decade instead of the best. Maybe my 30’s will be my best, or my 50’s. Who cares anyway?
I was put on this planet to live and experience life to the fullest. And I intend to live my life as such.
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