Confession of a World Traveler and a Life Traveler
Confession of a world traveler
Living in a country for a long time and finally falling in love with it after conquering home sicknesses and then leaving it afterwards is one of the hardest thing to do in life. Looking back at the past I can see the things that could have, should have been done differently in my life. There is one thing that I could have done in the past that I was able to do yet I didn't do and this is to travel to many other places that was always a dream of mine. Although I am a world traveler and a life traveler having to live in 3 countries in my lifetime, I still longed to see and visit many places I love. To be in another country and see the view of the surroundings and experience the culture of the people would be an excellent thing to do in the future. I think visiting another country, seeing other cultures broadens ones understanding of humanity.
As a woman born in one country, spend childhood and early adulthood in the country she is born in and during her productive years moved to another country and live there for a long time, long time enough to call and feel the new country as her own and after circumstances lead her to leave and this time go to a very far away country and different culture, I must say that this experience leave me kind of exhausted, and seems like losing my identity. It is different than when you just visit a place because if you visit a place without having to live there for long time you won't have any feeling of attachment to the place, so all you experience is fun and amazement with all the beautiful views that you discover in that place.
It is different if you live in a country for a long time because you will have a deep feeling of attachment to it as your own country. Most especially if life was kind while living there. The feeling of attachment actually switches from your country of birth to the present country. An example is when you visit your birth country you will have this feeling of uneasiness that you can't explain but when you go back after the visit you'll feel at home. So how will you feel if after a long time living in a foreign land and feeling at home in this new land, circumstances changes and you will have to pack up and go somewhere far away in yet another country? Well here is what I feel: During the migration, the packing, leaving and the flying you will feel numb like you don't know where you're going next. You don't want to think about it for a moment and just shut your brain for a while.
You feel sad that you are leaving at the same time excited for the future. Moving is not easy especially the third time. It is comparable to a divorce in human relationships. We usually fall in love with the place we are leaving in after a period of time. The country where we came from become a distant past, it doesn't mean that we have forgotten it or that we don't love our birth country anymore. We still do only that it seems so far away. We as people want to belong to someone like husband, family and friends and to a place or a country. But when we are new in a foreign land, home sickness is inevitable. Home sickness for the place that we left behind. All those fond memories are coming in until the time comes when we fall in love with the new land.
For a multi country residence, world traveler and life traveler like me I really feel lucky that I had the opportunity to embrace new and different cultures. And my dream is to visit and see places I have never seen before. Although I haven't travel enough and never been to many other places of my dreams, my advice to others is " Go travel if you can (if you still have the resources) while you can (while you are still young)."
