Be Still

Some people say that if you travel far enough, you'll find yourself. I used to find comfort in that assumption. When I realized that things didn't have to remain consistent, I took advantage of it. When something went wrong, when things felt "off," or if an opportunity presented itself — I took it. It was easy for me to leave it all behind. People, cities, universities, relationships. I kept saying I needed to find myself. If only I had known that I was never lost in the first place.

I spent about three years searching for myself as if I had gone missing. There were many phases, random relationships, extreme diets, and lots of baggage — the type that I lugged through airports and the type that wasn't tangible.

What I know now is that I was never lost. There wasn't a significant moment where I had left the "old" me behind like a mother forgetting her child in the grocery store. It was an accumulation of moments, good and bad. It wasn't an epiphany. Rather, I carried each trial like a rock and over time it had molded itself into something far larger, way heavier. I made a mountain of my past and trekked it with the idea that somewhere along the unpaved path I would reach a resting place.

There came a point where I needed to confront the path I was on. I never found the direction to confront because I wasn't lost — I just didn't know how to let go. I made an ocean out of my problems. Instead of letting the tide win I told myself I was strong enough to fight it. But I'm not God and these muscles cannot overtake nature's current. All I could do was let go. The only option that has life at the end of it is to let go, even if it makes you feel weak.

The tide was my depression. I wasn't strong enough to fight it, but in fighting I grew stronger. In losing I learned resilience. Eventually, I befriended my depression. I didn't force it away. I welcomed it. I invited God. We sat with it. We sat with my confusion and questioned it. We scattered my memories on the table and analyzed it deep enough to come to the conclusion that the answers weren't there. The answers aren't anywhere. The only solution is to create. It is to develop. It is to move on, let go, and remember that I will never be able to lose myself if I am constantly finding who God is calling me to be, who God has already made me to be. The answer is having one foot forward, even if the ground feels like wet concrete. It is trusting God, the universe, and even myself.

I'm still learning how to let things be. I'm still learning how to be like the ocean, with its tides, currents, and moments of stillness rather than being the victim that drowns within it.

Each trial is a lesson. I can choose to learn and move on or I can hold on to it so tightly that it ends up hurting me. I can make commitments and find passion within those things rather than always trying to find a way out.

You don't always have to travel far away to find yourself. Maybe you were never lost. Maybe I was never lost. Maybe I wasn't in need of searching but in need of clarity that what I had been searching for was already within me.