Live. Laugh. Love. Lose. Repeat.

Live. Laugh. Love. Lose. Repeat.

And so it goes…the rhythm of travel. I’ve said many times that my absolute favorite part of traveling is meeting people from all corners of the globe - strangers who turn into best friends. So I guess it only makes sense that the worst part is, well, the actual act of traveling - the moving, the leaving. See, the contradiction is how exciting arriving in a new city is - an opportunity to create a whole new world in strange surroundings where friends, lovers, hell, even acquaintances on the metro, can leave a major impression on you. But, then it’s gone. You’re gone. You’re off to a new city, ready (or not) to start from scratch.

Like a polaroid, you arrive in a flash with a blank white slate wondering how it’s all going to turn out. Slowly you’re world starts to form as you become familiar with your surroundings and strangers quickly turn into friends. Then, all you’re left with is the picture - the memory.

At the beginning, it’s exhilarating. It’s a challenge - can you arrive in a city thousands of miles from home and leave feeling like you have a family there? Can you leave calling that place a second home? By the end, after starting a new life every 5 days, you’ve made friends, you’ve left friends, and it begins to feel like you’ve left pieces of yourself behind only to try and pick them up in each new city. Even if you’re head’s still in the clouds, your heart’s pulled in 20 different directions. And now that my flight home is looming, it’s dawning on me that I won’t be able to just catch a one hour flight to a different country, or spontaneously hop on a train to meet up with an old friend. 

But it’s what I signed up for and I always knew the rules of the road. Live. Laugh. Love. Lose. Repeat.