The Write Way Around: Traveling Tales

It’s that time of year again – that time to make promises to ourselves that more likely than not are ones we don’t keep. I’ve never been one to make intense goals for the new year. In the past, I’ve promised myself to stop eating candy (which I actually have), start cooking (I really need to start following through on this one), keep up with my blogging (I’ve been doing my best yet since I moved to Australia), and of course that small, little promise I make myself to be absolutely perfect.

But this year, I have made only two promises to myself.

One is, as my one best friend from home says, to be more of a “yes” girl than I have been since moving back. So long as something fits within my moral code (yes, travelers do have a moral code), I am going to work on saying yes to things all around.

The second promise to myself is simple yet complex at the same: Be happy and be my own best friend.

I know it sounds terribly silly for someone who, at 27 years old, has traveled around the world and back again, who has friends on practically every continent, has herself lived across four continents in five different countries, and has seen devastation in the world to say that she has any reason to be unhappy or not to be someone who is always down to do things. At times I almost feel like I am not allowed to be unhappy or to have a night in, because as a traveler I am supposed to know that life is all about living and all about the journey. Sometimes being a traveler works against me, because the second something goes wrong and I get anxious or if a time comes where I don’t want to do something people say, “But didn’t you travel the world? I don’t get why you are being like this.”

I was, for so long, in a weird place, and I am talking back to when I moved first overseas to Korea. I always thought traveling would be the answer to how or what I was feeling, which was that something was just missing. On the surface I always seemed bubbly, always laughing, always eager, always learning, always grateful, always outgoing, always curious, and always friendly, and I was. I am. I am truly all of those things and more, but at times I almost felt like I was living two lives. It was like there was this big disconnect between what I was feeling and what people were seeing, like I would go from having the greatest day of all time to finding myself in a cave of worries. I was censoring my own life to show people the happy moments, the reflective moments, the “I am so grateful to be here moments”, which – don’t get me wrong – were all genuine and heartfelt, to mask the the rollercoaster of moods that I was riding.

The thing is, I think, that when you are living overseas or traveling overseas, it is so much harder to tell what it is that is driving you to feel what you are feeling (or figure out what is missing) because there are so many external and foreign factors to take into account. You are out of your comfort zone, you are out of your element, you are out of touch with the things and the people that (for many) matter most, so it could be one of a million things bothering you: culture shock, homesickness, career worries, troubles back home, relationship problems, financial pressures, not having good friends, lost loved ones, language barriers, having your heartbroken, bouts of food poisoning.

Though at times I definitely faced all of the above, I didn’t really figure out what it was that was making me so upset until I moved home. For a while, when I first moved back, I wasn’t able to talk about the past year without crying. I would close up like a clam so as to hold back the tears, which is so very unlike me.

People know when I need my time and space to process my feelings and thoughts, but this was just different. It felt like 2014 was my burn out point, like there was this total clash of differing emotions that started to feel like they went hand in hand with one another, and they had really taken their toll on me.

But after a while, and after being in an environment where I was surrounded by and breathing in ample amounts of unconditional love by my family and and the strength of such a strong and beautiful group of friends that I have had for seriously two decades, I started to see what was missing. At my core, I just wasn’t happy.

In the past six months since I moved home, I’ve become healthier, both physically and mentally, and happier than I was back in July. It has been liberating and exciting even to better understand myself and gain insight into my own life, but it also feels liberating to take steps to change and better myself and my perceptions. I had always wanted travel to be the answer, that I would be on the road somewhere and feeling so incredibly grateful for all that I have and all that I have experienced (and still have to experience), and that things would click into place and I would just magically be naturally very happy. And though I love traveling, and it will always be a part of who I am, I realized that traveling is something that will bring additional happiness into my life; it won’t make me happy. I learned for myself that the only thing and the only person that can make me happy is me.

I am starting 2015 out with probably one of my most vulnerable and honest blog posts to date, which I debated publishing when it came time to build the post. There are a lot of people who read this blog, some I know and some I don’t, and I wasn’t sure that I was ready to be so exposed to those people I know who do read this blog, because, let’s face it: It’s fucking embarrassing. Still, I learned that being a writer (especially one who writes personal essays, which is a path I would like to pursue), is all about putting yourself out there, being open and being real, and so I am.

This year, my goal is to feel happiness start from my core rather than rely on it from external sources. I want to be kind to myself and to be my own best friend, because being my own worst enemy or my harshest critic is not a good way to live my life. I am doing my best to learn how to not put so much pressure on myself or on situations in a way that makes me feel like I’m not good enough for something. I am working on building more confidence, being more vulnerable, being more forgiving, and I am working on prioritizing the things and people that mean the most to me – all while allowing New York to continue to dazzle me with its magic.

Will I have some lows along the way? I’m sure I will. As I draw nearer to 28, I am sure I will still go from having a fantastic day finding myself feeling anxious about how to fast track my career to the perfect one, about being in love, about all the traveling I still have left to do, and about the future or life in general.

But that is where this blog comes in – to remind me that life is not linear; it is filled with ups and downs and mixed emotions that create jagged lines and a funny little map that will lead you, one way or another, from Point A to Point B.

Bring on 2015.