There is a version of me that seems to exist mostly when I am somewhere else.
When I travel, I feel lighter. Freer, somehow. Maybe it is because no one knows me there. Maybe it is because I don’t know the streets yet, don’t understand every word being spoken around me, and don’t know what the next day will look like.
For a little while, everything feels new.
I grew up in a relatively small city. It is familiar, comfortable in its own way, and home will probably always be home. But sometimes it feels like nothing is happening here. The same streets, the same places, the same rhythm. There are days when it feels almost too quiet.
And then I go somewhere else.
Suddenly, there are people everywhere. Shops are still open, families are outside, cafés are full, someone is selling something on the corner, cars are passing, people are talking loudly in a language I barely understand.
Whenever I am in Morocco, for example, I am reminded of how alive a city can feel.
There is always something happening. Even doing nothing feels like something.
I love that feeling.
I love walking through a place where I don’t quite know where I am going. Hearing languages I don’t understand. Trying food I have never had before. Watching how people live their ordinary lives somewhere completely different from mine.
Maybe that is what I am looking for when I travel.
Not necessarily an escape from home, but a short escape from familiarity.
And I have wondered before if feeling so free somewhere else means that I am not entirely happy at home.
Maybe, in some ways, it does.
There are things I miss here. More life. More movement. The feeling that there is always somewhere to go and something to discover.
But then something strange happens at the end of almost every trip.
I start thinking about home.
My own bed.
My room.
Familiar food.
Speaking without having to think about the language.
Knowing exactly which bus to take and where everything is.
The things that seemed boring before suddenly sound comforting.
And when I finally come back, I am usually happy to be here.
At least for a while.
That might be the strange thing about travelling: it makes me want to leave, and somehow it also makes me appreciate coming back.
Maybe home does not have to be the most exciting place in the world.
Maybe it is simply the place that allows you to leave for a while and still gives you somewhere to return to.
And I think I need both.
The quiet of home.
And every now and then, the feeling of being somewhere I have never been before.