If you set out on a mission to find yourself on the other side of the world, it’s meant to be hard at times. ⁠ It’s meant to be painful at times.⁠ You’re meant to embarrass yourself a million times over as you try to make your sentences stand up straight in another language.⁠ You’re meant to learn some truths about the world that are unbearable to hold. You’re meant to watch all the cultural rules and conventions you grew up with dissolve before your eyes. When that happens, you’re meant to feel untethered. Unsteady. You’re meant to be left questioning everything you learnt all your life; from your parents, your peers, your school and your society. ⁠ You’re meant to throw yourself into the thick of the chaos and, clawing and desperate, learn what tools you have to navigate it. ⁠ And then, once you see what you don’t have, what strengths you haven’t yet cultivated in yourself, you get to work. ⁠ And the payoff is meeting yourself at a deeper level than you ever thought possible⁠ Meeting yourself in your pain, your embarrassment, your loneliness, your vulnerability, your discomfort. And coming out of it. Stronger. More confident. But also softer, with a more nuanced view of humanity. With connections from people from all different walks of life. ⁠ You don’t do it for the early paradise. You do it for the pilgrimage.⁠ ⁠ Words: @caitlincreeper⁠ Image: @vicentediaz_pingui