I moved around a lot growing up and at times felt like an alien or an outsider in my own life. Like a chameleon, I learned to mold and blend and change my colors in order to survive and connect with the world. I attended nine different schools spread between three geographical locations before college. My experience of not putting roots down anywhere for too long created a deep longing for a perfect place where I could settle into the real me, the me that didn’t have to change my colors.
For years, I yearned for the perfect place where I would feel at home and would feel free to express myself, to make sense of the world around me, and to explore its wonders and curiosities. I desired a place where my passions and ideas would be supported, where I would feel a sense of belonging and feel understood on a deep and meaningful level. This desire drove me to purchase a home at nineteen years old as a college freshman. I thought if I had a one place to call my own that I would be okay, that I could be happy and be myself and live my life. Even a house of my very own however couldn’t satisfy my void and I continued longing for a place outside myself.
Through all of my dreams of being elsewhere, somewhere other than where I was, my mother would remind me that “wherever you go, you carry yourself with you.” I’d listen, but stubbornly hold on to my dream of this somewhere, this elsewhere that I could escape to where all would be well. When I traveled, I did so with a mindset of looking for a place to fill the void. I couldn’t be content in the here and now and always planned and looked toward another there at a different place in the future.
Then, last summer, my body became quite unwell. I simply didn’t have enough energy anymore to engage in life and to go out and do things outside of those necessary for survival. I had to settle into the here and now and accept the place that I was in, I couldn’t go anywhere else. My lack of wellness gave my mother’s saying a new wisdom. In order to move towards a state of being well I had to travel and journey through all of the places that I had been avoiding inside as I sought to fulfill my needs outside myself. I left no ground undiscovered, exploring the scary parts in the dark nooks that held my deepest and darkest fears and also those spaces of light and life which I had locked away in an attempt to protect my deepest desires and passions.
I realized that my perfect place had actually been inside of me all along. My thoughts, emotions, perspective, and actions color my lens of viewing the world and no matter where I go or what I see, if I don’t use a different lens my perspective will remain the same. No place or space in time could change my relationship with myself unless I chose to. If I was always moving towards the next place when would I ever arrive? How could I enjoy what I experienced in traveling if I only viewed it from a perspective of fulfilling lack? Place is relative to the observer and if I wanted to create my utopia, I had to create this type of space inside myself.
Now, inside my mind, I can experience true freedom. I do take who I am with me wherever I go and because of that, I created a place inside that is loving, supportive, and comforting where I can be safe and free to live and learn and explore and know that I always have a place to call home. No matter where I travel to physically, I know that I can meet life head on and handle what it brings because I myself am strong, hopeful, and free and will carry that in my spirit, head and heart wherever my travels lead me. I’m grateful for my mother’s wisdom and for my own restless spirit because both guided me to the place I am in today. The next time I travel I can seek out the places where I can enjoy being alive and share in the experience of life rather than looking for a place to fulfill me.
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