I thought I was going away to escape my life. I didn’t realise I'd come back questioning it.

A few weeks ago, I came back to London after spending almost a month travelling through Asia on my own.

Bangkok. Chiang Mai. Bali. Kuala Lumpur.

It was my first time doing a trip like this by myself, and in some ways, it was exactly what I needed.

I wanted to see somewhere completely different. To wake up somewhere I had never been before. To get on a train in Thailand. To walk through the streets of Chiang Mai. To sit somewhere in Ubud and just… be. To see Bali for myself instead of through somebody else’s pictures. To have days where nobody knew where I was going or what I was doing.

And there were moments where I felt incredibly free.

But travelling alone also gives you something nobody really talks about.

There is nowhere to hide from yourself.

When you are alone for that long, you notice things.

You notice what makes you feel alive.

You notice what drains you.

You notice how much you crave connection.

You notice the people you think about when you have nobody around you to distract you.

And you notice the questions you have been avoiding when everyday life is busy enough to keep you from asking them.

The trip wasn’t perfect either.

There were places I didn’t connect with at all. Kuala Lumpur, for example, was not what I imagined it would be. I remember feeling disappointed, tired and wondering why I wasn’t enjoying myself when I was supposed to be having the time of my life.

And I think that taught me something too.

Sometimes we create an image in our heads of how something should feel, and when reality doesn’t match it, we think something is wrong with us.

But maybe you’re simply allowed not to love something just because everyone else does.

Then Bali gave me something I wasn’t expecting.

Connection.

One of those connections that makes you feel something very quickly. The kind that can make a few days feel much bigger than they actually were.

And then, inevitably, came distance.

Going back to your normal life while someone else goes back to theirs can be strange.

You go from sharing moments, conversations and physical closeness to wondering what something actually meant once you’re no longer standing next to each other.

And I think that experience made me reflect on something I have been thinking about for a long time:

Sometimes we don’t just miss a person. We miss how we felt when we were with them.

We miss the possibility.

The version of ourselves that existed around them.

The future we briefly imagined.

The feeling of being chosen, desired, understood, or simply not alone.

And sometimes, when the connection disappears, we are left trying to work out whether we miss the person or whether we miss the feeling.

Maybe it’s both.

I came home with a lot of these thoughts.

And then there was London.

The same city.

The same routines.

The same responsibilities.

The same work.

The same room.

The same life waiting for me.

Except I didn’t feel exactly the same.

I think that is one of the strangest things about travelling.

You can spend weeks moving through completely different places, meeting different people and seeing different versions of life — and then you get on a plane, and suddenly you’re back in the same place you left.

But you are not exactly the same person who left.

And lately I’ve been thinking a lot about what comes next for me.

Not just professionally.

Not just personally.

But what kind of life actually feels like mine.

I’m building my counselling practice.

I’m continuing to grow as a counsellor.

I’m studying, working with clients, learning more about myself through the work I do with other people, and slowly figuring out what I want my future to look like.

But I’m also realising that having goals doesn’t mean you always feel certain.

Sometimes you can be incredibly proud of how far you have come and still wonder:

Is this where I want to stay?

Sometimes you can be grateful for your life and still want something different.

Sometimes you can love the people around you and still realise that certain relationships no longer fit the person you are becoming.

Sometimes you can have a plan and still change your mind.

And maybe that’s not failure.

Maybe that’s life.

I used to think that by this age I would feel much more certain about who I am, where I’m going, who I’m going to end up with, and what my life is supposed to look like.

I don’t anymore.

I’m starting to think that maybe we are not supposed to arrive at some final version of ourselves.

Maybe we keep meeting new versions of ourselves.

The version who leaves.

The version who travels alone.

The version who gets disappointed.

The version who falls for someone.

The version who gets hurt.

The version who comes home.

The version who realises that some things she once wanted don’t actually fit anymore.

And the version who is brave enough to ask:

What do I actually want now?

I don’t have a beautiful, finished answer to that question.

I’m still figuring it out.

But maybe that is what this season of my life is about.

Not having everything figured out.

Not forcing myself to go back to the person I was before I left.

Not romanticising every experience just because it happened somewhere beautiful.

Not holding onto people simply because I felt something with them.

Not choosing what is familiar just because it feels safe.

And not being afraid to admit when I want more.

More connection.

More peace.

More purpose.

More experiences.

More honesty.

More of a life that feels like mine.

So, three weeks after coming home, I think I’m finally understanding that maybe the biggest thing I brought back from this trip wasn’t a suitcase full of clothes, photographs, or memories.

It was a little more clarity.

And a lot more questions.

And honestly?

I think I’m okay with that.

**Maybe you don’t always need to know exactly where you’re going.

Sometimes you just need to be honest enough to admit that you’ve outgrown where you’ve been.** 🤍

Have you ever come back from somewhere and realised that you had changed more than your surroundings had?