This Is Me Embracing My Wanderlust (And Refusing To Apologize For It)

I am not a daredevil.

My fingers shiver when I meet new people, I don’t speak the most coherent lines in front of crowds, and I still get a bit anxious when talking to someone I don’t know over the phone. However, I am a very curious person. I revel in listening to stories and peering into the souls of people who have lived different lives than me. My curiosity is what drives me to make a fist of my shivering fingers, take a deep breath and go introduce myself to people who I think are interesting. I have read more books than I have lived, and so I always happen to know the lines to get them talking.

I am scared of the dark and the places that look unfamiliar; I close my eyes tight when the flights take off, and yet I am curious about the paths I’ve never trodden, so I want to travel. Every night and day I dream of traveling as I inhale and exhale. I think about it so much that I sometimes feel I have traveled far and wide, which I have not. It is just my thing. I always write as if I have lived a lot of things I haven’t lived.

I remember this one day when I was 23. I woke up and suddenly realized I wasn’t a teenager anymore. Nothing felt quite the same and I was panicking at how the time has just flown by. Not that life was treating me badly at the time, it was smooth and in rhythm, but it felt aimless. It was one of those moments. An epiphany. I wanted to see places.

I feel the most alive when there is a hope for an adventure in the horizon. This does not mean I have a bucket list full of activities which may give a momentary adrenaline rush. My definition of adventure is solely setting my eyes upon a new land; the fresh smell of the air in my nostrils as I disembark a flight, my feet slowly sinking on a part of this Earth I’ve never trodden, the buzz of new languages in my ears and experiencing new cultures.

People fascinate me. I sometimes sit in a solitary park bench and watch people as they go about their lives. I cannot get enough of the wonder that is life, the fact that each passerby has a life as vivid and complex as my own. It is a deeply engraved desire in the deepest part of my soul to see and feel as many lives as I can. My eyes are thirsty to see the new lands and my mind is so to experience the new culture and new people.

I am not a daredevil.

I, however, know this. My life will always be focused on the most beautiful things the world has to offer me; I will always dream about exploring the vast horizons, feeling the sand beneath my feet, breathing the fresh air on top of a mountain, seeing things I have never seen before and my words will always ALWAYS be soaked with wanderlust.