"I was drawn by something I couldn't fully articulate at the time: a craving for freedom, truth, and a kind of belonging I hadn't yet known. What I didn't realize then is that this two-year trip would imprint on me a version of myself I'd spend the next twenty years slowly forgetting, and then, almost by surprise, begin to reclaim."
"The structure I was used to (school, expectations, a tidy plan...) had fallen away. I felt unmoored, as if I'd made a huge mistake. Who was I to think I could just wander and have it mean something? And then I met Merrilee. She was older, solo, sun-wrinkled and wise-the kind of woman who carries stories in her skin. Over an afternoon spent talking at our quiet guesthouse, she helped me see something I hadn't yet understood-that the point wasn't to fill the time."
A young traveler in their early twenties took a one-way trip to Southeast Asia driven by a craving for freedom, truth, and belonging. Three weeks in, familiar structures vanished and aimlessness, loneliness, and shame emerged. A conversation with an older solo traveler, Merrilee, reframed the experience: the purpose was not to fill time but to be with oneself, to listen inward, and to trust personal rhythm and desire without external validation. The traveler learned that true freedom required discomfort and a willingness to stop outsourcing worth, setting the path to slowly reclaim a forgotten self over decades.
Read at Tiny Buddha
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