Traveling (mostly) solo through three Balkan/Eastern European countries was the highlight of my summer this year. I had the opportunity of volunteering on a farm on the island of Paros in Greece, through a program called WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Farms). Even more exciting, I traveled entirely by bus from Greece to Bulgaria, and then to Serbia from there (Yes, Serbia is gorgeous and not to be confused with Siberia.) Here are five lessons and insights I gained on my past trip that have truly changed the way I see myself, travel, and my relationship with God.
Intimacy with God
From the moment that I parted with my parents at the airport, it became clear that I was in fact, alone. The amount of times my heartbeat was uncontrollable, my stomach was tight, and fear swirled around in my head, only to be silenced as I listened to worship music and whispered my worries to God was too many to count, though less towards the end. My family was halfway across the world and hours behind me in time. It was like a ride I couldn’t get off of, but God was sitting in the seat next to me. In the quiet moments when sadness made me feel hollow, I could ask for the Holy Spirit to comfort me. In scary times, I asked for God‘s favor. Before I left for my trip, we prayed that I would be surrounded by and meet many good people, and time and time again I watched it happen.
Faith in people
As a person who had a little (a lot) of social anxiety from past experiences in high school, I only braced myself for the worst in people. But time after time, I found the walls and fears and lies that I had built up in my head being erased bit by bit. I never imagined that I would walk away with friends, (by mutual choice and not desperation) from countries all over the world. To tell the truth, I thought I was incapable of making friends after such a long season of loneliness, but with every smile, every reassurance that someone was listening to me, that my talents were interesting, that I wasn’t annoying, I was healed. Things so small that meant the most to me.
Mental health breakthroughs
Before my trip, an OCD diagnosis was knocking on my door. In what I assume was an attempt for my brain to feel some control in a situation where I otherwise felt out of control, I developed a multitude of contamination OCD habits and compulsions that concerned my parents but that I could not suppress. When I left for college, my father expressed that he believed these habits would follow me wherever I went, and while he was right about college, it wasn’t true about my trip. While I’m still learning about my mind and heart and soul ( I’m alright with leaving some mysteries to the Lord) I believe that the ability to live with such little control and yet in relative peace is what reduced my symptoms or the need to carry out compulsions. Don’t get me wrong, I will always be a bit of a germaphobe or clean freak (whatever you wish to call it) especially while traveling. Minimizing your exposure to bad germs is always a good choice, especially when you’re alone and getting sick may become more than an inconvenience, and I attribute my absence of sickness on my last trip to prayer and sanitation-conscious choices. Still my compulsions, at least in the negativity and anxiety surrounding them, lessened greatly from my observation.
I learned to be more present
There were moments when, whether it was hormonal or existential (or both) I felt extremely deeply uncontrollably, sad, and/or anxious towards the beginning of my journey. I tried desperately to corral and herd my emotions to a constant state of happiness. If I was sad or even if my feelings didn’t measure up to the amount of happiness I thought I should be experiencing at the moment, I felt there was something wrong, and I was doing something wrong, that I was going to regret that moment later, and–worst of all–I felt I was reinforcing the feeling and belief that I would never be happy and carefree again, which in turn, deepened my sadness more. But this was proved to be so unbelievably true as I realized that the goal of my life is not to be happy, and making this a priority was not only unrealistic, but exhausting and depressing. As a Christian, my goal in life is to live out God‘s perfect will for my life and see how He can use me to show love and service to others. That is my job. And while it may sound depressing or dull to some, realizing this took the pressure of feeling happy constantly away from me. If I could be sad while sitting on a beautiful, breezy, enormous property in Greece with seaside views and bottomless Greek salad (ingredients), I knew maybe the problem wasn’t my life and circumstances but my mindset. And so, I still don’t know how I did it (spoiler: it was God’s grace, not me) but I was able to find so much peace even in the sad moments. I didn’t need to be happy to be happy. And that made me happy, because I no longer experience the fear of being unhappy. Now happiness was an effect, not a purpose or a calling.
Also, whether it was OCD or not, I don’t know, but before I always had this insatiable desire to soak in every bit of an experience and document it in full to make sure I wouldn’t forget a single detail or regret not appreciating it enough. But as positive experience after positive experience happened for me, I was like a kid being stuffed with food at their grandparents house. I could not even keep track of all the blessings and I knew when it was time to leave one place that the next may be filled with blessings I could not imagine, just like the place I was in was full of blessings I could not imagine before.
A confidence boost
Now, I promise you guys, high school wasn’t that bad (it was pretty traumatic), but I walked away from it with many false negative beliefs about myself–the most prominent and loud being that I was unattractive. Well, truthfully, 2023 drained so much out of me that this was probably true. There wasn’t much light in my eyes as disappointment after disappointment came forth–from college acceptance news to mental health hurdles–and my morale grew dangerously low. Admittedly, I walked around waiting for someone to save me from the pit that was my mind, and was especially hopeful of a romantic relationship being the thing that erased the pain was experiencing. But like happiness, I needed to realize that it was not my purpose to chase these things, and definitely not healthy to try to forget about my life with a relationship. This past trip, I got to watch lies die. Meeting other travelers like me, and seeing people from all nations and cultures that I thought were so pretty made me really see my own beauty, and realize that no one is indeed perfect. And not to put anyone else down, but even Instagram-model-looking people of the boutique shops and Airbnbs on the chic Greek island of Paros were, up close, just people too. We all walked on the same cobblestone streets, we all glowed the same beneath the sun. I became stronger from farm work and so much walking, and my skin became so much warmer from the sun and frequent glow of sweat. I really felt that I too could be pretty, as lie after lie was dispelled. I thought I was the opposite of photogenic. The handsome Greek tour guide took photo after photo for me, and I looked normal! I thought my teeth looked ugly (I was never able to get braces) and for a while, tried to make them less apparent in photos. On my Eastern Serbia day tour, a lovely old shopkeeper–translated by my guide–told me I had a beautiful smile. I thought I was incapable of holding a conversation with guys I found to be attractive, but I met many cute guys along the way who I really enjoyed talking to and who as it turns out were–you guessed it: just people! We were all nervous when first meeting our fellow travelers/roommates, and all wanted to make a good impression on each other. While I somewhat expected hostels to feel like a glorified high school sleepover, the maturity of people that I met (especially those that weren’t American) made for an extremely welcoming and even enjoyable environment. There was, for the most part, a bottom line of respect in each of the rooms I stayed in. I wouldn’t mention it if I thought it didn’t matter but–it does play a role–being black, I do look different than many in European environments, and so I think some people found me interesting just for that fact, as I found each person I met interesting; the classy, tall guys from Switzerland who cracked jokes at each other all the time, the gorgeous, strong German girl who was biking the entire way from Bulgaria to Turkey, the guy from the States who arrived stained by an exploded pen in his pocket, as he endearingly described it. When I think of it, past me would not believe I’d have such wonderful interactions and conversations with such a multitude of people, that I would walk away not fearing people that looked intimidating or cool or what my teenage brain would refer to as “popular,” and that I truly had just as much as to offer as anyone else. That I would come to enjoy these conversations and interactions. But I believe this was only possible once I realized something so obvious yet so crucial, which was that my looks didn’t define my worth. It was only once I stopped obsessing over how I looked at every moment that I was able to enjoy being me in my fullness. Without those reservations, beautiful me was able to shine through, the beautiful that had nothing to do with the clothes I was wearing or how my skin looked, and that was the best gift of all.
This feels like a wonderful shift of seasons after the driest of deserts, and I’m ready to come into a time where fear is not the author of my story. I know this is only the beginning of a lifetime of travels, and that God is not done surprising me, as He surprised me this past June. Thank you Lord.
Matthew 11:28