” We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”
–T.S. Eliot
“Not ceasing from exploration” speaks to all of us who love to travel. There will never be an end to the journeys and experiences waiting in this world. I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that I’ll never see every place on my list—but that doesn’t stop the list from growing all the same.
It’s the second part of this quote, though, that lingers with me: after all the exploring and adventuring, to return home and see it as if for the first time. Travel changes me with every trip. Whether close to home or far away, each experience becomes part of who I am. Lessons, laughter, tears, detours—all of them weave together into the person I’m becoming. And at the end of all my journeys, I imagine looking back not just on where I went, but on who I became along the way.
Sometimes I picture an older version of myself meeting the young girl I once was. Would she be astonished at the places she would one day go? At the joys and sorrows that would shape her life? Would she marvel at the woman she became through all of it? And would that older woman look at the young girl—truly look—and see her clearly for the first time?
To me, this quote captures that moment of clarity: when you see your life whole, with all its pieces woven together, and realize what a wild, extraordinary ride it has been.
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