How Travel Saved My Life

Let me first start off by saying that this is not a sob story. This is a story of how I found personal empowerment amidst extreme adversity… while traveling.

There are not enough words in the dictionary to describe the pain that I was experiencing. The relationship had ended, and I was left standing in the centre of a hurricane of unresolved emotions. Grief and shock abounded, and I turned to my closest confidants for support. I will refrain from using the words manipulator or emotional abuser. I will describe it as a massively disempowering entanglement that resulted in a total loss of self. In time, I came to realise that the end of that entanglement had uncovered something far bigger, and it was not just about my broken heart. It served as a catalyst for a snowball effect that brought my entire being into question. I no longer knew who I was.

Unable to cope and recognising the need for more help, I entered therapy. A life saving and life changing decision. Over the course of the next eighteen months my soul entered a dark, introspective time. I was forced to stare shadows from my past right in the eyes and to look my personal demons straight in the face. An excruciatingly painful process followed as I dismantled the remaining aspects of my life that hadn’t already been torn to the ground. Ultimately choosing what would stay, and what would remain behind me. This was now a total reshaping of self.

Traumatising triggers existed everywhere I went. They permeated my daily life in multitudes, rehashing old pains from as far back as decades ago and forcing me to relive emotional trauma in real time as if it were happening to me in the present day. Something as simple as the sound of a siren could cripple me to the floor in an anxiety stricken mess of tears. A complete shell of a person, I was losing my desire to continue.

All the while, I had applied to work at a major Canadian airline. This was one of the few things I had left to hold on to. After a six month hiring process I secured a position as an airport agent. I flew across the country for training, all the while desperately hoping to escape the suffocation of my triggers. As busy as training kept me, the triggers followed me those thousands of kilometres away. Two weeks after my first shift I jetted to Toronto for the day simply because I could. As refreshing as it was to get out of town, I began to acknowledge that I could not run away from my problems.

Mentally, physically and emotionally exhausted, I had reached a breaking point. It was dawn at the airport in the dead of winter, and I was quite literally on the edge. The noise of a jet throttling into the sky caught my attention, and watching it fade into the distance was my only distraction from an otherwise very dire scenario. I decided that I wasn’t done quite yet, and I’m glad I chose to fly rather than to fall.

Three weeks later I started travelling relentlessly. I did not leave my shadows at home, I packed them and brought them with me. A wise confidant once told me that we defeat our shadows by bringing them into the light. I travelled extensively to anywhere and to do anything that made my heart soar.

I had the opportunity to meet one of my idols in New York City. In the short conversation we shared I confronted one of my biggest personal demons and left feeling the happiest and most complete I’d ever felt in my entire life. Not long after that I jetted off to Dublin to visit a good friend. We were hardly sober for seventy-two hours, met new people, joined a hen party and an old man named Brian showed us the best reggae pub in town. I learned to let life in, and to allow myself to live it.

From Dublin I flew to London, a place I have no hesitation calling home. I spent eight days entirely by myself in the greatest city in the world. I reconnected with what I loved, rediscovered what I wanted from life and began to connect with my authentic self. On the morning of the Manchester bombings of May 2017 I woke up to a message from a local I had met earlier that week. They described the incident in Manchester to me, and asked that I please be safe walking around London that day. It was the kindness of a complete stranger that reminded me that there are people out there who care, and never to forget that.

I flew out of London and was in Canada for seventeen hours before going to Boston for three days where I was attending an event to see the same public figure I had seen in New York. I found a friend in the person seated next to me in the auditorium. In that chance meeting we found a lot to commiserate about, and I learned that my world wasn’t so small after all. Letting people in expands your borders. A surprise opportunity at the event allowed me to confront the same demon I confronted in New York, this time on a larger and more public scale. I did so without hesitation, and left feeling full of joy and completely exhilarated. Upon returning to Canada from Boston I entered a period of several months where I didn’t travel. I worked tirelessly to incorporate the lessons I had learned and the discoveries I had made into my everyday life.

This is what travel taught me and how it helped create my new, authentic self:

• Travel shapes your independence. It sculpts your instincts in a way that you can carry forward with you forever.
• Travel allows you to meet new people. People who are open to new experiences, people who share similar interests, people who just might be able to help you in ways you didn’t know you even needed to be helped.
• Travel allows you to let life in, and to really truly live it.
• Travel puts everything into perspective. Big or small, you can gain insight in ways you never would’ve previously thought possible.
• Your world is never too small if you have the courage to expand your horizons.
• Sometimes life calls for a fresh start. Travel allows you to catch a glimpse of what that could look like. A glimpse into a better, brighter future.

About Evan Rudic
Evan is a twenty-four year old amateur blogger, travel photographer and avid solo traveller. He firmly believes that travel and adventure has the ability to create better humans and evoke immense personal growth. He also actually likes airplane food.

Follow Evan’s Adventures: His Website
Twitter: @EvanRudic
Instagram: @EvanRudic

Front and Thumbnail Image by: www.globesurfer.de