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Morgan Harper Nichols posted the below photo while I was studying abroad in Salamanca, Spain, and something about it spoke to me. I spent much of my trip reflecting on what it means to truly live in the moment, and I also spent a lot of time thinking about the past half a year or so. I'm not going to lie. Spring semester of my junior year was rough. I wasn't in the best mental state. Actually, that's an understatement. And then I basically went right into an intensive, 7 week public policy program at UC Berkeley. Those 7 weeks were some of the most intense and taxing weeks of my life in every way--mentally, emotionally, physically. (Maybe I'll write more about that one day, but that's not the focus of this post.) From there, I had a brief semi-break before hitting the ground running this past fall semester. If I thought my spring semester was difficult, my fall semester was something else. I was overworked, lacked motivation, dealing with serious mental health issues, overextended, still trying to recover from the summer, and working on my capstone project.


So when I got to winter break, I was relieved. I was lucky enough to get a scholarship to study abroad for the winter and used a mix of my savings and my Christmas gift from my parents to afford a short trip to Paris and Luxembourg before heading over to Salamanca. And although there were things that weren't quite easy or totally relaxing about studying abroad or even traveling beforehand, for the most part, I felt as though I was happy, relaxed, recovering, rejuvenating. It truly felt like I was coming back into myself and coming alive again. My trip to Luxembourg to visit a close friend provided me such a sense of happiness and comfort, and it allowed me to slow down and enjoy the moment and being in someone's company. Traveling around Spain and Portugal on weekends during my time in Salamanca was at times stressful but also beautiful and fulfilling. Being surrounded by amazing people (which is not to say my friends at home or my friends from the Berkeley program aren't just as fabulous), I could feel myself loosening up again. I laughed in ways I haven't in a while.

Porto, Portugal

I thought things were getting better. I thought I was getting better, in a better mental state. And then I returned home, jumping right into this semester. During many of the long nights these past few weeks, I've returned back to the above image and quote from Morgan. During a coffee date with a good friend of mine, I realized that travel and these short trips are me putting temporary brakes on dealing with everything happening when I'm normally at home.

We're told that travel is life-changing, eye-opening. And I'll be the first one to attest to that. But it's often a step away from your "real" home life. Whether it's vacation or a study abroad/away, you put aside your usual stresses so that you can take advantage of the time you're spending away. You leave some of your worries behind, although replaced by others for sure. You may be living in the moment, taking it all in, but I think the reason we think of ourselves as coming alive when we travel is precisely because of this. You're in the moment, but if you're leaving behind your usual life, thoughts, stresses, worries, happinesses, what does that moment mean? I don't mean to place a negative or positive connotation on this.

Luxembourg, Luxembourg

One of the reasons I love to travel is precisely because I get to put aside my "regular" life, my usual habits and worries. That's a good thing. But I wonder how healthy it is to use travel to escape when you use it as a way to avoid dealing with problems. In the short run, it may feel great. It may even actually be good to get away, to get some space. However, what does it mean when you're running away from truly dealing with your mental health? What does it mean when you use it as a means to cover up your pain?

I certainly don't have any answers, but as I'm grappling with being home in New York again, this has been on my brain a lot. I want to be able to enjoy travel but to not use it as a means to escape or hide from my problems. I want to travel in a way that actually helps to heal. I think that's when getting away is without question positive and helpful. I want to be able to travel in a way that's a little bit outside of my comfort zone but in a way that will help me to grow without creating new traumas. In the same way I'm working on healing and "coming alive" and being in the moment in my every day life, I owe it to myself to also do that when I'm not home. I want to be fully present, with all of my struggles and pain and problems and all, and I want to be able to find my way through it, with people who support me and help me find that way.

We all deserve this process, and we all deserve to give ourselves the room to figure out what this means and what this looks like for ourselves. There's no one way or one reason to travel. Sometimes we all need an escape, a step outside our reality, but I hope it's not too far away that it just puts off or compounds our problems. I hope that in escaping, in taking that step away, we instead find the room to heal. I hope that we instead find space we don't normally have in our daily life and routines to grow, to heal, to come alive.

Berkeley, California