Next Boarding Pass

These last five months have been an emotional roller coaster. I miss home, but I don’t want to go home…and then there’s the unruly question still lingering – ‘where even is home?’ That comes with the life of one that can’t seem to sit still. As with all changes in life, the reality of leaving behind what you were once so comfortable with can hit you like a ton of bricks – you only know what you love when you let it go. 2017 has certainly hit me with something along those lines. Although I’ve made some amazing memories in England, it’s without a doubt that our temporary home is not where we belong.

Before setting out on an exciting new venture, we always have a preconceived image of how life will unravel itself. Though more often than not, that image in reality doesn’t reflect what we were expecting. We can plan all we want, set goals and make those steps. Though it’s clear that life will always steer you into the unknown.

After landing in Plymouth in January, the plan was for my best friend and I to use Plymouth as our base while we travelled across Europe for the next 12 months. It’s true, we fell in love with our home away from home at first, though our restless feet quickly took our minds elsewhere.

With a goal to visit a new country each month, I’ve so far been to Malta, Spain and Germany. With this taste of spontaneity, brought the defiant truth that spending a majority of our time in Plymouth for the coming year would have me unhappy and restless.

After some time of leaning on one another’s shoulder for some whine time, it reiterated in the back of my mind the many times I’ve been told that life won’t change until you choose to change an aspect in it yourself. Our hearts yearned for some dire decision making, we knew we couldn’t just accept the situation as is. Though there’s nothing more confusing than trying to address an unexpected situation that is interfering with a dream you’ve craved since you were a little girl.

I knew I needed to let go, to stop mourning the loss of what I thought this adventure would be, and start embracing the life that has been trying to work its way in. Things don’t always go to plan, though as we’re told by our loved ones our whole lives, life will always unravel itself the way it is meant to be.

We’ve decided not to return to Plymouth after our travels over Summer. I have been lucky enough to have the opportunity to move my studies and work online. Which means the possibilities for the next eight months are boundless. Tomorrow morning, we leave Plymouth and start a two-and-a-half-month adventure exploring Scotland, Ireland, Portugal, Spain (because I can’t get enough of this beautiful country), Italy, Croatia and Greece. I have my eyes set on the Netherlands, Hungary and Germany to become my next temporary home, though again, who knows what the future holds for me.

Even though this chapter hasn’t been anything close to what we expected, the one thing I will not doubt is the value of the people we have met along the way. I believe we all enter this world with something that will touch the lives of another. It is clear to me that these people are the reason that since I began travelling, I’ve never felt that I could be completely home anywhere again. Because like they say, there is a part of my heart in multiple places of this world. This has been the magic of my journey, not the destination.

Another lesson for my book – Our lives are a story, though sometimes we lose the authority of writing it ourselves.

– Haylee x