A little personal

Traveling by yourself isn't about where you go, it's about who you are.

Self discovery is always confusing for me. I delight myself with how fast I acclimate, how self reliant I can be and how interested I am in other people. But I get lonely, and it isn't the loneliness of being by yourself. A profound and intrinsic loneliness intertwined with the human experience that is usually masking by your daily life is suddenly unleashed at times like these. I have to wonder if that's the real reason most people won't take big trips on their own. It's not an easy thing to face, and it's not something you can change, no matter how hard you try.

It's there. It's part of you. You feel it peek out it's head out in those small moments of your life; standing on a busy street corner by yourself, walking into your empty room after an unsatisfying day. Usually, you're able to distract yourself (with other people, or with your computer, movies, all those lovely things we've invented for ourselves) and it recedes back to where it came from. But here, in this big, beautiful city where I know nothing and no one, there is no distraction. The loneliness is everywhere I go. And honestly, I'm not sure I would take it if I had one. Maybe it's because I'm an only child, or just because I'm a little solitary by nature, but there is a kind of beauty in the loneliness. It colors my experiences, and it feels like touching something larger than myself, larger than Argentina, larger than life. Call it spirituality (if you must).

It isn't comfortable, and it hurts, but I also don't think it's something that should be ignored. You should dive in when you get the chance to experience something new about yourself because otherwise, what's the point? The feeling of being one among many, the awareness of the edges that separate you from everything else... this is part of being alive. A very real part that I am trying to embrace. It drives me to do and see things or meet people I wouldn't otherwise. It helps me open up to the world.

Plus I get introspective. I'm going to get what sleep I can, because in a few hours I'm off to the end of the world.