This time, I didn’t say: let’s go together. I chose myself.
When I went to Germany, Italy, Portugal… I didn’t wait for anyone. Sometimes people came with me. Other times, I just went alone.
At first it was terrifying. To arrive alone, in a place where no one knows your name. But eventually, it felt like freedom.
Because you don’t have to wait anymore. You don’t plan around someone else’s fears. You just… go.
You walk the city. You notice the locals. You sit in cafés without no one watching your time.
And yes, sometimes it gets lonely. But you learn to sit with it. Because depending on yourself is still better than waiting on someone else.
You might not meet someone in every city. You might not fall in love in every café. And when you expect too much, you ruin the quiet beauty of what’s already there.
Like when it’s 5 a.m. in a hostel hallway and you’re talking to two strangers from Mexico about their trip to Poland.
Or when you are on a motorbike, riding through the streets of Italy, trusting someone you barely knew with your whole life.
Maybe freedom isn’t a place. Maybe it’s the moment you stop asking for permission to feel it.
You won’t always know what you’re looking for. But sometimes, you find yourself in the middle of someone else’s story, and realize you’re not lost at all.
You just keep moving. And somehow, the right things find you anyways.