The sound was at once familiar and foreign to my ears. I did not recognize it immediately. Only when I felt a warm rush envelop my body was I able to identify the noise. As blood began to course through my veins, it was unmistakable. It was the sound of a beating heart.
Is that all there is?
It was a question I was surprised to find myself asking, but here I was, unsure whether there could be more to life than the existence I’d created for myself until this point.
For years, I knew there was something missing. The absence of this element repressed me, stunted me, and I began to shut down. I felt myself fall into a depression of sorts as I realized that the way I was living was not affording me a future worth living for. I looked forward to nothing. Happiness seemed but a distant memory. I had come to terms with the belief that this was a place I would be stuck forever. To envision or hope for more seemed like a decadence I could not afford myself; I had not earned the right to dream.
I slipped further from reality until I was so enveloped in the fog that surrounded me that it seemed impossible for me to emerge. I wanted to retreat, withdraw, and simply lock myself in my house alone and never come out. When I was with others, it was as if I were in a trance. Interactions seemed like they were taking place underwater; conversations were warped and muted, contact was cushioned.
I remember taking a picture of myself with my cell phone one morning. Vainly, I thought I looked attractive in the reflection of the escalator mirror. My arms looked muscular in the overhead light, and the artificial light cast a warm glow over everything it touched. But when I saw the photo I had taken, I did not recognize myself.
How long had it been that way? When did my physical appearance start reflecting the inner corrosion that had been occurring for years? The haggard face that stared back at me through the photo was but a ghost. A shell of a human; a soulless phantom.
And then one day, I woke up.
The change was sudden. Impossible to describe but even more impossible to ignore. It was as if the magic spell had been broken; the princess had been kissed.
All at once, the beauty of life revealed itself to me once again. The world appeared in vibrant colour; gone was the grey shadow that had clouded my vision for so long. Simple songs pierced through once-deaf ears, and melodies sank deep into my flesh. A simple touch would give me goosebumps. I was alive again.
It was the adrenaline of travel that awakened me from my numb stupor. It had simply been so long since I had last travelled that I had forgotten what it felt like to be alive and to experience the world outside of my bubble. The simple art of travel had blasted through the dark, heavy fog and reintroduced me to my passion, my truth, and my self.
It is with this realization that I set off to explore the world. Travel is my life blood, my life support, as I fling myself into the world like a baby bird learning to fly.
This is my story of rebirth. From the ashes of an emotional death rise the flames of passion. Like the phoenix, I spread my wings and prepare to soar.
So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
–Mark Twain
