Some of us are prone to wander. I wonder why.
It seems that every year, I depart for a new unknown. Foreign internships, study abroad and unadulterated travel are the historical signposts on my journey to adulthood. My passport is a jumbled scrapbook of stamps and visas, and my luggage wheels are worn down from years of trudging through snow, sand and asphalt.
Although my prior experience should allow me to claim professional traveler status, every trip makes me feel like an amateur. Each journey feels like the first summertime plunge off a diving board: cold and uncomfortable, performing in front of an audience of what feels like thousands. What's more, the lingering hugs at airport departure gates don't get easier with practice. I never understood precisely why I put myself through these sorts of paces on an annual basis.
Last week, I was running through the streets of Auckland, pumping Jay-Z through my headphones as my abused feet hit the pavement in their well-rehearsed rhythm. Without warning, the answer to my travel question appeared, self-evident and sickeningly sweet like a Hallmark card from an out-of-touch relative. I realized that I travel because it helps me find love.
My high school trip to China helped me find love for myself. An American Beauty I was not - at 16, I was pudgy, speckled with acne and permanently sporting slouchy rhinestone-studded jeans. I was hypersensitive to my exterior and astoundingly ashamed of my shell. When I arrived in Beijing, however, I discovered that the Chinese had a different take on what I had determined was a decidedly unappealing adolescence. My skin was not pasty but porcelain. My eyes were emerald, not muddy. My round face and absent cheekbones were a sign of class instead of a deviation from a universal ideal. After hearing it several times each day from onlookers and bystanders, I began to truly believe that I was not pudgy but "pi
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