"You'll need coffee shops and sunsets and road trips. Airplanes and passports and new songs and old songs, but people more than anything else. You will need other people and you will need to be that other person to someone else, a living breathing screaming invitation to believe better things."

-Jamie Tworkowski

Comes the Dawn

After a while you learn, the subtle difference between holding a hand and chaining a soul, and you learn that love doesn't mean leaning, and company doesn't always mean security. And you begin to learn, that kisses aren't contracts, and presents aren't promises, and you begin to accept your defeats, with your head up and your eyes ahead, with the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child, and you learn, to build all your roads on today, because tomorrow's ground is, too uncertain for plans, and futures have a way of falling down in mid flight, after a while you learn, that even sunshine burns if you get too much, so plant your own garden, and

decorate your own soul,

instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers, and you learn, that you really can endure, that you are really strong, and that you really do have worth, and you learn, and you learn, with every good bye you learn.

Realizations from the past month as told by Veronica.

Lessons Learned: Coming Home

The first thing that I do after I pick a place to travel to is run to the nearest book store and snag a copy of the respective Lonely Planet book. From there I highlight, make marginal notes and make lists based off of the findings within the bounded spine. The one thing that it doesn't tell you is how to come home.

I would like to think that there isn't a set way to come home and that is why you can't find a trust worthy travel guide on how to come home, because it looks and feels different for everyone. The emotions are so drastic that one could not possibly put it simply into a book. Even as I write this post, I know that I will never get down the frustration, sadness and restlessness that has plagued me.

This is what I am finding out to be true on coming home-

1. You are going to want to cleanse yourself of everything that reminds you of the person you were before you left. This might include getting rid of piles of clothes at a time, because you just witnessed half of a country's population to be in mere rags. Before you left, doing what seems to be endless piles of laundry, use to be a daunting task. Now you just feel guilty for changing your outfit for dinner.

2. The smallest thing can set off the biggest emotional break down. Just the other day, I tried to fix myself a little breaky and ended up throwing a cereal bowl away as I cried on my kitchen floor. I was so overwhelmed by the fact that I had choices for breakfast. It seemed ridiculous that there were six different types of cereal, five types of fruit, eggs, waffles and breakfast sandwiches to choose from. Some people only know rice porridge to be breakfast.

Oh and the next day, you'll just avoid the kitchen in general until your stomach starts screaming at you how hungry it is. And the day after that you still won't have eaten breakfast. But then soon, you will. The moral of this situation is that readjusting back to does in fact require baby steps, and that is okay.

 3. The first trip to the grocery store will be the catalyst for anxiety and another break down resulting in you running out of the store before you can finish purchasing your items. I was privileged enough to experience life on different terms than I ever knew existed, it was only a distorted reality until I was there. Coming home soon becomes a series of depicting people's actions and selfish motivations. Stores, restaurants and social gatherings are very difficult to partake in because the isles and tables are consumed with selfishness, rude, self entitled people. Of course these different behaviors may seem like social norms in a Common Wealth society, but in the larger picture, I have come to realize how miserable Common Wealth citizens truly are.

4. It is going to seem as if you are traveling back in time. My biggest fear before I left was everyone was going to move on with their lives without me, and that I wouldn't have a place when I came back. Realistically though, not much is going to have changed. But there has been a larger, more impactful evolution within yourself. This isn't a testament to say that those who travel are better than those who don't venture off. But the truth is, when you travel you change at a more rapid pace. It appears that things back at home need a reason for a revolution, however, when you travel you are force to revolutionize your life because the world says so.

5. On that note, you won't be coming home the same person. I remember going to Africa for the first time and sobbing my eyes out because I knew that the girl who was boarding the plane at JFK airport was no longer going to return. To be honest, I did not expect this much change. I figured, I have seen suffering countries, I'm there to witness and hear stories ... but I never knew what would make of it. Little did I know my entire sense of self was in question. I would like to think that I will never properly or fully be the person I am meant to be. Which sounds scary, but my explanation for this is that I want to always work on bettering myself. I never want to be a completed project.

My priorities have radically changed, until Common Wealth living sucks me back into it. I listen to frustrated voicemails because "yet again," I didn't pick up my phone. Or too often do I go to make a phone call while I am out on errands to realize I have left it somewhere. I care more about talking slower and expressing thoughtful, genuine thoughts instead of surface level conversations. I've been fighting for kindness more and more. Kindness in the words I choose, the strangers I see and the amount of kindness presumed towards others. Mostly I allow myself to feel, without apologizing.

6. When changing and creating space for this new life, you will realize that some people from the past just don't fit. You no longer have energy to fight for friendships that don't continuously evolve you and make you a better person.

This.
Is.
Okay.

7. Anytime the mention of travel comes up in conversation, you will cry.

8. It doesn't make you a bad person for not wanting to be home.

Coming home is tough. It isn't a myth when people say you will experience more culture shock coming home than you do exploring uncharted territories. I had a couple of months given to me to live in a different country. There are things I witnessed and felt that most people will never begin to comprehend, and that is okay. It is difficult to explain the circumstances and events that weren't all picturesque although they are probably most important to my travels. Everyday has been a constant battle on who I was and who I have turned into. I am in frequent question of my surroundings, the people I associate myself with and the idea of what next.

Coming home isn't a photo oped homecoming.

It's lonely. It's discouraging to see the lack of ambition, when you once surrounded yourself with the most ambitious people. Looking back on older posts I laugh at the thought that I once missed home. Because 'that' home that I missed, isn't the one that I am in now.

At the end of the day, I just chuckle and say, "little naive girl, this is exactly what travel is all about. You wanted to be revolutionized, so you left. And now you are changed."

Pioneer Heart

"Life moves on, whether we act as cowards or heroes. Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil can become a source of beauty, joy and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has to vision to recgonise it as such." -Henry Miller

Ever since I could remember my biggest dream, aside from being Miss USA, was to work for a non-profit. A non-profit that made change to those who were lesser off than I was. A non-profit with dignity and poise that didn't need to make face, in order to validate it's existence.

At the ripe, young and naive age of twenty I landed my dream job working for Reach Out Volunteers. The first time ever going overseas was with them and it was enchanting. I would be lying if I didn't admit to questioning this amazing opportunity that had been given to me without much effort on my part. It was meant to be. So I did what most reckless individuals would do: quit university, signed away my own non-profit work, sublet my apartment and packed a duffel bag trusting it would get me through.

I took the plunge and decided to make the commitment of marrying the world, for better or for worse. The only safety net I would have was my work, my heart, and a map that led home. Naturally, skeptics were critical of this decision. They knew you [the world] had too much history and I was too naive. But I boarded the plane, for better or worse, not asking for anything in return. Like all relationships we have had our ups and downs. A few bumps that landed four stitches on my chin, financial issues when a friend cheated me because they were more desperate for money, and days of illness that would make a grown man want to crawl into his mum's lap.

The only expectation of this commitment is to continuously give my heart away. And so I do.

And oh do I get burned for it.

It is a reality that I never wanted to face. In a way, I always made sure that I was under prepared to face it, as if, if I were prepared then someone that meant I was a cynic. I should have taken closer notes in history and English classes as each book has a preamble explaining that there are two kind of people in the world: the good and the bad.

I guess going into the non-profit sector you never suspect that it would be with those people. The missions that they are so dedicated to, that is scribbled on their websites are some of the most inspiring pieces of literature you can come across. Taking on this job, I never suspected I would become exposed to the selfish, and putting on face aspect of the business in such a raw manner.

"You will have three grand loves in your lifetime," I was once told. I'll reserve one for my last boyfriend and one for the world. And oh does the world break your heart more brutally than any human can imagine.

I didn't write at all in the month of June because I needed a break.

I needed to breathe.

There was this urgent need in not knowing how to feel what I was feeling, because I was afraid it would kill me. I didn't want to think about it. It was survival.

Then selfishly I didn't want to write about it because I wanted to internalize it and allow myself to experience it for myself. We live in this marvelous world where we over share, and share instantaneously. It can be a great feature to our lives, but it can also be suffocating. Lately, I have found it to be the latter.

That is where I have been the past month. Trying to figure it all out.

What do you do when you realize that you "dream job," falls short on all basis? In the past month I found out that one of my heroes Somaly Mam wasn't who she said she was. Does that make her a bad person? Truthfully I don't know. There is a huge part of me that wants to believe she saw a horrific issue in her country and took the most desperate of measures to try and find a way to raise awareness about it. Then, shortly after do I witness at hand that my family, Reach Out Volunteers, sadly fell into that ugly disguise of putting on a facade in the wake of turbulence, opposed to doing the right and most dignified thing.

Considerably young and thousands of miles away from home did I literally feel my world unravel around me.

With a note from the doctor requesting my bed rest, I am at home with two ruptured ear drums, a viral infection (have yet to beat it), and server exhaustion/dehydration.

Oh and a broken heart.

I have a few weeks to figure out the next big move.

But if I know one thing is for certain, I won't be home for long.