Finding Freedom

Free

     I don't know where I'm going, I don't even really know what I'm going to see or do, but I could care less. I'm not stuck sitting in a board meeting, pretending to be interested in statistics that I don't particularly care about. And to prevent the inevitable boredom from an office job I threw a dart at a map, hoping and praying that some sort of mysterious force would lead me to freedom.

I packed up my entire two bedroom apartment into a storage locker, took out all the money I had in my savings and bought a one way plane ticket to Iceland, the one place I thought would get me farthest away. I told my friends and family about my trip around the world, they all thought I was insane to travel the world by myself. My parents even tried to get a friend from high school to go with me so I wouldn't have to travel alone, their concerns rising because I am a girl. But I still went, alone, and in search of finding the sort of freedom only found in fairytales.

My first stop was Iceland, a place so beautiful that I cried when I stepped off of the plane, ignoring the fact that I had no clue where I was going. The blue lagoon, dormant volcanoes and breathtaking scenery made me feel alive for the first time. And as I travelled more, not knowing what was to come was such a thrill for me, it was like a drug that I had a constant supply of. I didn't have to stress about picking up groceries, early meetings or rent, I was just thinking about how wonderful it was to wake up and be so far away from anything I had ever known before. I would wake up to some of the greatest views that the world has to offer, the pyramids, waterfalls and bridges were my new scenery instead of the dirty city that I used to call home.

I would stay in hostels, cheap hotels and occasionally a friend's couch. I ate food that sometimes didn't settle well, things that I will never forget the taste of and some of the best food in the world. I met people that had so many stories, laughs, smiles, all of the things that make us human, I connected with people like I never had before. The creatures and places I saw were unbelievable reminders that I was alive, and that I was truly free. I wasn't in a busy city, running to catch a bus in high heels and a pencil skirt, I was hiking to the ancient city that the Incan people once thrived in.

I woke up one morning, months after my initial departure from the life that held me down, and looked at myself in the mirror. A girl was staring back at me with a huge grin on her patchy, sunburnt face. She had dirt caked under her fingernails, cuts up and down her arms from tumbling down a particularly steep mountainside, hair that was messy and tangled, the girl was so unlike what she was back in San Francisco. The girl in the mirror was so happy, she was truly free of the life she once lived, she was so excited to live in the hostels where she shared a room with strangers, when once, not too long ago, she would have been too afraid to even say hello if they had met on the streets.

I am proud to call that girl in the mirror, me. I'm not the person I was when I was twenty one, and I definitely won't be the same person I am now if I ever go back to the United States, but I could care less because I know that wherever I go that I will be just fine. I have survived thieves, food poisoning, kidnapping attempts, and so much more, so why should going back to a "normal" life scare me? Well, for one, I am afraid that if I leave this way of life, I'll never be happy again. I'm afraid that someone will then depend on me, and I won't be able to give them what they want. I try not to think of those things very often, but every once in a while when I'm staring at the ceiling in a foreign room it will hit me, but I still continue on. I will continue on until I can say that I can no longer find freedom in this way of life. Because here, in the middle of the world, exploring every nook and cranny, I am finding freedom.