When Leaving is Fashionable (UB#8)

I see a trend among my peers towards fixating on leaving home… we are confused when people do not have a plan to leave the place they grew up. There are so many issues leaving home has forced me to face that I wouldn’t take back… but I don’t think seeing more of the world will somehow make your life ‘better.’ It will probably force you to expand your mind and yes, travel will be a temporary escape from what might be eating you up, but you’re going to find more problems and then you’re going to go home to problems and you’re going to be carrying remnants of the problems you found along the way.  Those problems might be the fact that you have found out that your own worldview is not unquestionable or simply that in coming home you had to leave friends you love. Travel is not a cure to life’s problems and if I’m correct in thinking that that is how it is often portrayed something needs to change. We cannot go on lying to ourselves about how wonderful it is to travel. Being gone from home for a prolonged amount of time is incredibly difficult and sometimes even painful yet we continue to pass on the lie that it is all fun and games. It is easy to pass on funny stories about crazy places and unusual people-- it is harder to pass on the power of the emotions that will sometimes overwhelm you when you find yourself thousands of miles away from anyone that has known you longer than two months. We ache to be known by others. Leaving home means sacrificing the craving we have to experience love through being known. We should not go on trying to share the experience of leaving home if we are not willing to share both sides of the experience. It is lying when we are not willing to admit that our experiences away from home are not only positive.