The Hidden Cost of Traveling

Traveling is beautiful. It’s enriching, breathtaking, exciting, and gives lifetime memories.

The side that isn’t shown is the hard goodbyes. The emptiness that I feel when I part ways with amazing people. The hard transition from hanging out with the same friends and feeling comfortable to starting over again in a new place.

I know this is the price I have to pay. If I want to meet tons of cool people, I have to realize it’s going to be in passing. Knowing this beforehand doesn’t make it easier. It still hurts the same every time.

When I left Pakistan, I was anxious to come to India. I made so many friends there that felt like family, how could I not see them everyday? Sure enough, by the end of my first month in India, the girls I did yoga with were like sisters. The first few days after leaving them, anxiety was back. I didn’t want to go out and meet new people. I just wanted my girls back. Like clockwork, the people I met in the following two months in India changed my life forever.

The shift between meeting someone for the first time and them becoming someone you know will stay in your life forever, it’s priceless. The short time that I have to suffer through tears and missing is incomparable to the joy they brought and will continue to bring to my life.

So yeah, it’s hard to constantly meet people that I know I will have to love from a distance. But these connections I make around the world are worth it every time. They make distant love seem close and show me that home can be anywhere that a piece of my heart stays.