on travel.

As someone who has spent an undocumented amount of time travelling between airports and living out of a suitcase months on end, I realized how unaccustomed I have grown to travel. It hurts to say that with something which I have grown so intimately fond of that has been a backbone of my childhood. My feet no longer fit the shoes it once wore, and I had to wear through some experiences that younger me, would have berated myself for.

Yet that said, it came back naturally once more. The spaces, the feelings, the opportunities and moments. I forgot how soothing travel has always been to my soul and how much of it I have taken for granted throughout the years. It is always a joy to return to Europe, a place I have called home, and will always call home. It was surreal walking through the same familiar streets I used to walk through, with the same familiar steps, turning the corners to see the same but different things. Sometimes going back and returning to spaces you once inhabited reminds you of how much growth you have achieved.

As always I found myself sitting in the melancholic joy of it all. Catching up with friends who I have not seen for a better half of a decade. Being able to actually hold true to a promise I made people to see them before they start their next onward adventures, and relishing a life that could have been mine, and how different everything could have been, had I chosen the path well travelled. These spaces will always hold a part of me, and for that I hold immense gratitude. I hope this is the beginning of a continual effort, to remind myself of the joy and wonder that comes in self-discovery, of spaces that continue to welcome and call me back, years after I have said goodbye.