In Retrospect

As cliched as it might seem (I cringe just to type it), but as every fiction has a scratch of truth . . .

Traveling around the world for nearly ten months--or nearly one year as some like to tell me--has certainly changed me. 

Of course, we always change over time, regardless of what we have done with time.

Yet it is true. These ten months abroad taught me so much, too much, that I am quite overwhelmed just to imagine whether I could apply these lessons to life. 

Would I ever remember these lessons? I don't know. 

Yet what I've learned so far, I can tell you in simple terms.

Let's start with one of the greatest lessons I've learned: relationships.

Relationships are hard. To maintain a relationship with anyone, be it your parent, child, friend or even a supervisor, is hard.

I have a profound respect for everyone who work hard on their relationships. It is painful to watch a relationship crumble in spite of your efforts. It is glorious to watch a relationship blossom. 

We take relationships personal. A relationship is such a personal thing, and we cannot be impersonal about people we care about. And to complicate it even further, we also bring our relationships with ourselves into the relationship with someone. It fascinates me just to think how we fight so hard to remain true to ourselves and fight others so hard to get validated for being ourselves. It is difficult to juggle yourself and someone else as well. 

I've made many gross mistakes in my relations with others because I've often chosen to remain true to myself and/or because I've often chosen to devote myself to others' well-being. 

And I have to tell myself over and over to forgive these mistakes, to take them as lessons, and to have faith. 

It is hard, but I am trying. I have to try. I must try to love and to be loved. 

And I am remembering that others are trying, too. I have to remember. I must remember that others are trying to love and to be loved. 

It can be exhausting. However, we do this because love is all we have and want for ourselves and others. 

It troubles me when one of us says that, because we could not find someone to love and to receive love from, there must be something wrong with us.

I don't think it is true. I like to think that we all are equally capable to have healthy relationships and bad relationships. Factors that pop up in these relationships are what trigger us to react or to respond. Sometimes we are loving enough to respond well. Sometimes we are too confused, too scared, or too angry and react before we could think clearly. We are quite complex beings and we deserve to recognize and understand this complexity within ourselves. 

I think it is all about timing and endless patience with ourselves. We are so imperfect that in a sense we are perfect in our own originality. 

It is brave to remain true to yourself. It is hard to figure out a healthy formula of staying true to yourself and allowing others to stay true to themselves. It takes so many lessons, and because we all are so uniquely shaped, we learn them differently. 

While it is important to love yourself and to have faith in your progress, I think it may be equally important to have faith in others' progress as well. How can we insist that others are so flawed that they couldn't love and be loved properly when we are just as flawed? 

It is hard to have faith in others because it is like taking a leap in faith, to blindly waddle into the sea of endless episodes of war and peace. When should we stay long enough to see all the episodes? When should we swim back to the shore?

It is hard, oh so hard, but when we manage to find a way to love and to be loved, oh, how worthwhile it has been! 

Why did I mention relationships? 

Because I've spent ten months meeting so many new people, deepening friendships with so many old friends, and developing profound affection and respect for so many of them that I want to burst out in agony for my failure to show them my gratitude and love and burst out in joy for having reached a point where I am able to shower upon them my gratitude and love. 

They changed me. They taught me so much that I am beginning to re-define my very existence. 

That's what I've learned: relationships are hard but oh so worthwhile. 

The other thing I learned from my trip is: 

I will never stop transforming. I will never stop growing up. 

I have managed to learn how to admire and respect myself before this long trip. I even went far enough to promise myself I'd remember how to love myself. 

This admiration and respect for myself had been shattered to near oblivion during ten months mainly because so many things happened that I barely had time just to recognize how they affected me so. It was getting more and more exhausting to listen to my own advice to love myself. 

I've forgotten myself in my pursuit for something indescribable. I forgot to admire and respect my own beauty of being. I spent so much time agonizing over my self-hatred that I forgot to turn my attention to my ability to love myself. 

It took a long time and many episodes of war and peace before I finally remember to love myself again. 

Now, looking back to these ugly moments, I smiled. These ugly moments amused me; they had transformed into black comedy and I smiled at how I have grown so much. It felt like I've gone through my teenage years all over again. I was a teen once again. 

So I am always growing up. My teen angst will come back to suck me into the wormhole of self-hatred and I will have to Interstellarize myself back into self-love. 

It feels very much life to me. I am alive because I change. Change is the only constant and to be constant is to change. 

Let's see if I still think that way a few years later! 

One lesson that surprised me the most, and it is ironic to call it a lesson. The lesson is that life is undeniably full of surprises. 

For ten months, I have no real routine and on some levels, no routine affects my life in a way that surprises keep coming up. Every time I plan and intend to follow through this plan, I am so often confronted by an abrupt turn of events that force me to change my plans. 

So many surprises led me to drastic weight loss and gain, illnesses, hair loss, new friends and reunions with old friends, arguments and resolutions, sorrows and joys, changes and renewal in my dreams and passions, cultural differences, and especially to continually discover how small the world is--and how big it is. 

I now could not tell you what will happen to me after I return home. Surprises haven't cooled off yet and I am still flying with the wind to whichever direction it goes. I change my plans almost constantly that I can't keep my head straight. I can't keep promises. Life is holding me hostage to its surprises.

And I kinda like it. Kinda. 

Admittedly, I am rather afraid of no surprises. I had grown accustomed to the unexpected that I am a bit unnerved by the thought of dealing with the expected. But then, life is full of surprises and I will surprise myself with the way I deal with the expected. 

What a surprise to discover how so rich life is in surprises! 

There are so many lessons I could talk about, but I will end with one more lesson:

Traveling is not necessarily the time to discover yourself. It is not something you can take lightly--or heavily.

Traveling is everything and nothing. You can make it a journey of self-discovery. You can make it a silly memory to treasure. You can even not travel and still travel in other senses.

Traveling is what you make it to be. 

I feel changed by my ten-month trip because I want to grow some more. Perhaps I got way more than I bargained for, but I suspect they are exactly what I asked for, consciously and subconsciously. 

I am glad I decided to leave home last September. And I am glad I decided to come back.

I am glad I have this life. I am glad I am alive. 

I am glad.