Traveler

Prologue • Road

7940 miles.

That is the distance between home and school.

23 hours and 45 minutes.

That is the time it takes to go to school.

A light blue curve, graciously drawn on patches of green, yellow, ochre, and blue, like a thick band, ties two continents and an ocean.

This curve, and many more, are the roads that we travel. 

Every road has a start and an end. The start of the road resembles the present, while the end is the future. It is the difference between the dream-like future and the stark reality of the present that attracts us. The brightness of the future allures us, who are like flying moths darting into the light. Sometimes the brightness isn't even brightness at all, just infinite possibilities, risks we are willing to take.

Yet the shades are overshadowed by the lights. The road to the bright future means a separation from the past. Travelers are like little parachutes from the dandelions, forsaking their roots and tumbling with the wind. Many admire the beauty of their flights but overlook the price they pay. That price, the separation from the past and the isolation in a new world, may not show from the start. Like a balloon that blows up, it waits patiently to pierce itself with full force, when the ice-cold water come pouring out of the bucket, freezing to the bones.

It wasn't until now, almost three years on my journey, that the feelings of separation have started to cast their shadows. I stared at blank windows, remembering the reflection of myself with an old pair of glasses and a fully packed backpack. On the other side of the glass, my mom buried her head in my dad's shoulders. My grandma covered her face with tissues and my grandpa replaced his everyday laughs with a sobbing voice. I felt like a numb corpse in a coffin, that I was dead forever, that I was looking at my family on my funeral behind a tall wall of glass. We stood there for long, among thousands of travelers walking back and forth, taking on their own flights, leaving their past to reach something unknown.

January . 2017