Not many people are able to really be present in the moments of their lives that matter, the simple ones that actually shape their path. Many people only get to see their growth in an existential rearview mirror, having passed by some of their littlest but most formative turning points without even realizing it. When I set out on my gap year, determined to find out where my need for adventure could take me, I inadvertently learned how to be present in my most important days while they were happening. My journey started in the Indonesian Borneo rainforest, doing habitat conservation when I was 18 years old and fresh out of high school. I tracked many rescued and released Orangutans there, toured the islands and flew out of Bali. I volunteered in Thailand with art relief programs for disadvantaged communities and ate spicy food that made me cry. I lived on a Himalayan lodge learning to bird watch and understand the damage ongoing poaching causes and it was actually on that mountain that I faced my biggest health crisis of my whole gap year. My final stop was South Africa where I traveled from Cape Town to Johannesburg, also known as The Garden Route. This was my journey, and the girl who set out for the Indonesian rainforest at 18 felt like a distant cousin to the 19 year old girl who came back.
What happened to me at each time and place are what constituted my ultimate character development. Moments like missing a flight in Kathmandu and ending up at a local coffee shop trying to figure out my next move was where I discovered some of the most amazing desserts that I have ever tasted, something I would have missed if I hadn’t missed my flight. By getting sick on top of a Himalayan mountain and spiking a dangerous fever, I had to ride a donkey to the local medical clinic. There I got cared for by the women of that Nepalese community and got to fully realize the power of profound kindness and the love human beings are capable of, even towards me, a delirious American outsider with tonsillitis. Those were some of the moments I felt, and still feel, the most deeply.
It was the hard and wonderful encounters with the simple humanity of people that made compassion feel obvious and praise unnecessary.
My gap year forced me to stop and listen to the world around me, even when that meant facing fears and learning hard lessons, one of which I learned in a Thai airport. As I tried to board a plane, my passport was taken from me by airport police. Mold had begun to grow in its crease from prolonged exposure to humidity during my time in the rainforest, now qualifying it as a “health hazard.” By having to negotiate to get my passport back and gain the subsequent ability to leave the country, I became a live witness to my own growth, my ability to become who I needed to be in that moment, someone who can now negotiate a passport back.
This obstacle was set before me as a challenge, a dare made by life, and suddenly I knew I would overcome it. I found a corner of myself that could be perplexed and push forward anyway. I still use that discovered strength everyday, of facing off with life and refusing to blink. Each time I remember back to moments that could have defeated me because they held challenges of a different breed, but I adapted, grew and became more myself than I was the day before.
I constantly rediscover the benefits of a gap year, each one revealing parts of my evolution I had yet to realize. I think back to my weeks in the Borneo jungle as one of the only times in my life that I felt I was in a different version of life, and I wasn’t sure I liked it. It is also one of the only times in my life that I knew would never leave me, it was too much to ever fade away and it pushed me in every sense of the word, in mind, body and spirit. The heat was heavy, the rain was hot and every day tested my desire to be there. It was not what I expected and not what I thought I signed up for, it exhausted me, it was spectacular and terrifying and I have never been so grateful for any experience in my whole life. Ten hour days in °100 wet heat, building a rain shelter for sherpa motor bikes, bathing in the river fully dressed in order to respect the values of the muslim men we were living with, were all parts of my new normal. It was there, sleeping on an elevated rice sack strapped to wooden poles and eating nothing but noodles and rice, that the beautiful and dangerous surrounding natural world healed me in ways I didn’t know were broken.
I cherish that time, always, but know I am not meant to relive it, that is what I learned. I can miss something, and not want it back. Those 7 weeks forced me, and those around me, to face why we went there, what we wanted, what we were searching for in the wilderness. Now, when I am entrenched in a situation that I feel is drowning me, or a task I feel unequipped for, I ask myself those same questions. Why am I here? What did I expect from the choice that led me here? What am I seeking to find by being here? Answering those questions is how I decide how I want to move forward. If my answers don’t help me grow, my choice needs to change. I now know that I can love something with all my heart, realize all that it means to me and also know that I don’t want it back. That idea can be lonely sometimes, but it showed me that I would rather feel whole and alone than broken with company. That is an intersection I never thought I would understand.
Fear of uncertainty faded away when I was submerged in cultures that offered me experiences, both good and bad, that I knew were permanently changing my life. Although I am not entering a South African township or an Indonesian jungle, I am still entering spaces in which I feel like an outsider. Now however, I approach those spaces with the same curiosity that I did in foreign countries.
As I enter the workforce, and all the interviews that go with it, I feel anxiety before each call. However, then I think back to my time with the Thai airport police. I remember how I was faced with people who I didn’t know or trust just the same way, how my heart raced, that I felt confused and scared in the same way and I realized something. Those similarities stem from the fact that both the airport moment and this one, are adventures, this one is just a different kind. The adventure now isn’t across the world in an airport, it is now in my work and my endeavor to build a new life. My year abroad was about choosing myself, and that is what I am doing now as I plan my career. Even in the midst of a crippling global pandemic and heavy uncertainty in so many areas of life, that feeling of actively choosing my life continues to hold me up even when I feel too weak to carry on. I learn deeper, feel openly and appreciate sincerely because I care more. What I learned from my gap year of how to move through the world on my own with a purpose of my choosing, has given me the power to offer up more of myself to others without feeling drained from within.
The decision to take a gap year made me understand that distancing myself from what I had known was not an abandonment of my home, but rather me embracing everything else. From that moment of decisive adventure, I knew what it felt like to purposefully live my life. It is a choice everyone must make, to show up for themselves and what they want just as much as they do for others. My gap year instilled in me that self-focused care and exploration are not actually selfish acts, but are instead the process of making myself a more sustainable resource for the world.
I made a choice to venture into the world without knowing if it wanted me. I strived to live everyday with impact and curiosity and sometimes it hurt, but I chose to push myself everyday and now that’s a mindset I can choose to have for the rest of my life. I can make the decision to be curious rather than afraid, to show courage even when uncertain and to choose myself even when I don’t feel worth it. Erasing doubt and hardship is not what my gap year meant for me, instead it meant I got to face it, learn from it and grow close with those who went through it with me. The people from my travels are now scattered across the world but I still feel them by my side, helping me now as they helped me then, to become the person able to write this, and mean it. There are now places in the world I can point to and say “that is where I fell in love”, “that is where I hurt and grew,” “that is where I faced dark parts of myself.” Those are the most important to me, the places I think back to everyday as times in my life that still shape me now. It is a powerful thing to have memories all over the world, it makes me feel connected even when I’m alone. I remember waking up in my small room atop a Himalayan mountain, looking out the tiny dirty window next to my bed and seeing snowy peaks that seemed impossibly close, as if they were mere feet away and if I tried, I could jump from one to another. I felt far away from everything that mattered before then and the people I met on my mountain, just a day prior, were now who I shared my adventure with.
I am stepping into a new stretch of my life where I am moving to a new city, navigating love in a time of seclusion and finding new friends, it is a time of turmoil and possibility, much like traveling. My time abroad helps me remember that even though this seems like a directionless time in human history, in my history, it’s not. Human purpose can be found anytime that someone says, “This can be more, so I will make it more.” That is the decision I made when leaving for my gap year and it is the decision I am making now, to see my life set in front of me and decide that it can be more.
My gap year was an act of honesty, my declaration of what I wanted and my commitment to being honest with myself has been a lifeline when those around me don’t understand the future that I see. I tell people that wanting to do something is a complete thought and just as valid a reason as any other. I no longer feel the need to justify my feelings or explain my mind if I do not want to. Travel gave me a sense of agency that is now a pillar in my construction of future plans. I will be scared, confused and at times, unhappy, but being honest about those moments is what will get me through them. The knowledge my gap year gave me is that the only way past my dark moments of uncertainty is through them, a terrifying and incredibly freeing thought. Now and forever, I, along with everyone else, will face crossroads that make us ask ourselves if we are strong enough, brave enough or know ourselves well enough to make the right choice. In those moments, my gap year reminds me that I am courageous, strong and that I really do know myself in a way that matters. My time abroad developed those internal strengths, not through rigorous discipline or academic expectation but through growth that I set in motion by venturing into the world just as I was, restless and determined. My gap year has kept me curious about life and it makes me feel 19 every time I remember it. My final lesson of my journey ended up being my reason for starting in the first place, I listened to my inner child. I now firmly believe that more people should listen to that small, powerful, and radical voice. I did, and it led to this life, one that makes me feel alive.
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