HELLO FROM A STRANGER

"I was a combat fighter in Vietnam. I remember like it was yesterday... My first night in the trench.

I had two soldiers behind me, trying to sleep for a minute whenever they could. Claymores in front. Barb wire fence in front. It was terrifying. It was hell.

That first night in that trench... I drifted off and had a quick dream.

In the dream, I was looking down a winding dirt road, with a beautiful country home at the end of it. Huge pine trees all around. Out in the wild. Total paradise. It was so beautiful... For that one moment.”

(He has a moment of silence)

"Adam, can you come with me for 7 minutes?"

We hopped in his truck and he drives down a little dirt road for just a minute. As we go around a gentle turn, he slows down and tells me to look forward.

There, right in front of me, was a winding dirt road, with a beautiful country home at the end of it. Where he and his wife had lived for the last 30 years, in their dream home.

"This was exactly what I dreamed of that night in the trench."

"Everyone around here calls me Tweety. I've been taking care of pigeons on this same block for over 50 years."

"I was born in a part of Iraq without much opportunity. My father was a general in the army and my mother was a housewife. My father wanted so much for me to become something but we didn't have the opportunity where I came from.

So, when I was young, he would just make me read books all the time. As many as I could, every day. We always valued education and that was the best we could do.

Then, one day, I received news that I could go to America to go to college. It was such a big day and my father looked at me and said 'This is the chance we have been preparing for.'

I went to America and graduated with my doctorate in Pediatric Medicine. And I have been a pediatrician here for over 30 years now."

"I grew up in the 50's in St. Louis. Now, back then, everyone was poor. And I mean, really poor.

Only once in my life, when I was a freshman in high school, my mom gave me $5 and told me I could buy what I wanted with that money but that was it. And all I had ever wanted was a pair of nice shoes.

I bought a pair of Italian loafers and I wore them every single day. They were all I had. I wore them every damn day until they finally wore out. So, when they did, I took them to the shoe repair shop by my house to have them fixed. He fixed them but the first time it rained, it wore them out again. I ended up finding out he used the cheapest leather you could buy, which was belly leather. I was so upset that I went to trade school (which was free in those days) just so I could learn shoe repair to fix them myself. And it really was just because I loved that pair of shoes so much and I knew I would never be able to get another pair. What did I do with my first project in that class? I fixed my damn shoes.

Now, I've been doing this for over 50 years and supported my whole family with this."

"I am 90 and he is 93. My husband died 12 years ago and his wife died 3 years ago.

We both met at a lovely senior citizens home and, after months of sitting at the same table for lunch, he finally told me he had feelings for me. On one of our first dates, he told me that he didn't want to fall asleep alone and wanted me to fall asleep next to him.

But I told him 'If you want me to sleep next to you, you have to marry me first. I am a lady and my values haven't changed, even this late in life.'

So this Saturday, we are getting married here in Napa Valley to make it official. So that we can spend the rest of our days being able to fall asleep next to each other."

“I remember a day a few years ago when I was power washing this property here, about to build my home. The machine was loud but I had this feeling like I should turn it off for a second so I did. When I did, I heard all of the shouting.

I ran outside and saw a few people around a man laying on the ground, by some power lines. I ran over there and saw the man was injured badly. He was from the power company and working on the wires when he got electrocuted and left torn apart.

But somehow - He was still alive.

I had some CPR training so I gave it to him while others ran to get help. They ended up airlifting him to a hospital in Kingston and he survived, but he lost some very important parts about his body.

The power company came to our town (Treasure Beach) to interview the locals and try to find some mistakes that he had made, so that they could deny his insurance. But I told them the truth - They had left the wire hanging too low and it was a fools errand. It was far too dangerous to be worked on.

The man the company sent said to me 'Sir, do you know that I was sent here to find a way to deny this man what is justly his? To find a way to deny his insurance. Because of you though, I will be going back to publish my report and say that we should give this man what he deserves.'

He left and I never heard another thing for over a year.

Then, one day, while I was in my home, there was a knock on the door. I opened it and immediately recognized the man from the accident.

He told me he had lost everything after the accident. His ability to have children, his wife had left him, and I could still see how badly he had been burned. But he asked me if he could come in and I welcomed him with open arms.

He said 'Sir, I came only to say thank you for the compensation you help me get. Because of you, I won't have to think of work again. And I am here to ask you - What can I do for you? I was given a lot of money and want to know how I can use this blessing to bless you also.'

I quickly pulled him close to me and told him 'Mon, I have enough money. I don't need any more money. If you really want to bless me, then please take that blessing and go out and live the life you deserve. What happened was not your fault and what you do now is your choice, and only yours. Go and live your life with it.'

The man hugged me and when he pulled back, I saw many tears coming from his eyes. He gave me one more hug and then he left - And thankfully, never came back to this day.”

"When I was 26 years old, I had no direction. I was a writer but had never been able to find a way to make money at it.

One day, I watched an old 1950's movie called The Magician and came up with a ludicrous idea to make some of the costumes from that movie. My plan was then to photograph people that came into the store with the costumes and process them into old looking photographs to sell to them.

I thought I'd mess around with the idea and then move on to something else.

I told the idea to a friend and he mentioned that he had a tax-exempt number that I could use for the store to help get started.

I did but, shortly after, I found out that you have to actually profit to use a tax-exempt number or you would be penalized - And I wasn't making any money at all. I didn't want to screw that friend over so I knew I had to figure it out.

I rented a place on a very popular boardwalk that has about 250,000 people that walk by the storefront each month. I didn't have much money, only enough for the down payment, so I got a loan for the rest.

The very first weekend I was open, I made enough to repay the whole down payment and I never looked back. That business ended up becoming my entire life and I ran it proudly for 42 years.

3 years ago, I finally retired from it and gave the business to the two employees who had been with me the longest."

“It’s hard. It’s really hard.

To inspire your son to become a baker and follow in his fathers footsteps means inspiring him to do something that takes a lot of time. Something that means working with your hands and might not look cool to your friends. Doing something that isn’t cheap or easy to do. So, last year, I took him to Fiji to show him how so much of the rest of the world lives. We met locals who took us in and they took care of us, for no reason other than the kindness in their heart. Expecting nothing in return. People with so little reminded both of us how to treat others. And, when we came back, he really started to see that many of the people he thought were his true friends, were not. Because he learned that true friendship expects nothing in return.

So now, we’re back in the bakery and I’m just trying to show him an honest way to live.”

Her: "We just celebrated our 58th wedding anniversary."

Me: "Wow. Do you remember what you did on your first date?"

Her: "Of course I do. It was on our first date when he asked me to marry him."

“I’m 76 years old and I’ve been drinking at this bar since I was 13 years old.”

'“Jamaica is a place that we are proud of, and have fought very hard to keep corruption out of. We even hold our police accountable here.

A few weeks ago, I got pulled over by the police because I am a taxi driver. They won’t mess with the tourists but they will mess with us from time to time.

The officer told me ‘Give me your papers so I can check you out.’ I had all of my papers and gave him the right ones. But he said ‘This isn’t enough for me - Give me $25,000 Jamaican (about $200 USD) or I have to keep your papers.

This is a lot of money to us and I explained to him that I didn’t have that much. I told him I only had $15,000 Jamaican but it was all the money I had made and I needed it. He didn’t care and told me to give him the $15,000 and then bring him back the other $10,000 or he would come arrest me. I didn’t have a choice so I said okay, and he told me a place and a time to bring it to him.

When he walked away though, I wrote down his police plate and information. He drove away and I went to the police station with this information and talked to the supervisor, to tell him what happened. He told me ‘Okay, bring him the other $10,000 and I will come with you.’

A couple days later, I went to the spot the police officer told me to go to with the rest of the money. I brought the supervisor with me and, when he saw him take the money, he came out and arrested the police officer… Putting him in handcuffs right in front of me and putting him in his car.

Then he gave me my money back and we took a corrupt officer off the streets.’

“We are from Buenos Aires, Argentina and now live in Australia. When we were very young, we had a teacher who taught us English so we could get around in the world. But she taught us the wrong words and many of the wrong ways to say things... And it’s been impossible to reverse since we were so young. I’ve always been too embarrassed to even speak it.

So, when I (girl on right) had children, I didn’t want to be the one to teach my daughter. I wanted her to have the best teacher so she did not have to repeat the same mistakes I will always make. And now, she is fluent in English and she helps me continue to learn it correctly, and make less mistakes.”

“The only thing you need to know about where we are at that this is the place the rest of the world has forgotten about.”

Sample photographs that can be fillers - I have lots of these. And think they evoke a lot of emotion with just the photograph.

Sample of photographs connected to my writing (I have a lot of these):

I'm sorry to say it guys... But we've all been lied to.

If there is one major lesson I learned from Cuba, it is this:

Nothing you own will give you happiness... Not your home, not your job, not your bank account. Not even your surroundings can give you happiness.

It can only come from inside of you.

For I have seen the most vivid and genuine happiness in the poorest places my eyes have ever laid eyes on, and it was because of one thing: Relationships. Their families and friendships. Their husbands, their wives, their children. These are how they measure their success and how they determine their happiness. And their hearts overflow with joy by just spending intimate moments of life alongside them.

So, when you think you don't have a single reason to be happy... Please try to simplify your life enough to focus on the things that really matter. By paying attention, you can start to notice how many things (that cost absolutely nothing) give you long lasting joy and love in your heart.

Then be grateful for them.

Right after I took this photograph at a primary school in Poland, they all ran back inside and I could hear loud cheering, yelling and excitement.

I asked my friend and translator what they were saying and she said "They're all saying 'We just met an American!!!"

Sample of my personal writing - This is how the project began:

This project began in a moment of internal chaos. I was broken and desperately looking for a way to survive the grave emotions I was feeling. 

I really didn’t know what to do - All I knew was I had to move. Physically and mentally. I had been sitting in my home for so long that my brain had gotten stuck in a comfortable loop of numbness and depression. How did I even get here? I had been working so hard to work on myself and run as far as I could from everything that had hurt me in the past.

I had given love a sincere chance. I had opened my heart up to a relationship and fallen in love in St. Louis… Deciding to put my relentless travels on hold to give it a chance. Even though I was taking more punches than love from it, it was someone that I would be able to be vulnerable with. It was someone that would grow with me and be close to me. Someone to wake up next to, usually, on the nights she actually came home. And, most importantly, I wouldn’t be alone anymore.  

It’s funny how alone you can feel when you solo travel for so long. You’re surrounded by people all the time. But there is a strange chasm inside of you that grows the longer you do it - Desperately hoping to share the magnificence you’re experiencing with someone who would give it a deeper feeling. After you’ve traveled so much on your own, you have seen so many sunsets that the real beauty you’re looking for is to see that sunset reflected in the eyes of the person next to you. 

I had also just picked a new city to move to, a new place, where I would be surrounded by nature with the girl I was in love with. Cities had begun to make me very uncomfortable with all the traffic and noise and I knew I had to be somewhere to live a calmer existence. Maybe it was just lying to myself that the demons inside both of us would disappear with enough room for them to scatter… But I had to try something. Even though we had picked this city, we had barely any money to afford rent with and neither of us had a job. I had a photography gig that owed me the other 50% of their contract thankfully - Which was $2,000 - Enough for us to pay a deposit and pro-rate the rest of the month. We would sit in a Starbucks and use the free internet, refreshing Craigslist every few minutes and hoping for a place to show up. We were also trying to get jobs but those turned out to be a little harder to get when you don’t have a shower or any way to iron your clothes. We would spend all day looking for a place to live, applying at jobs and then, at night, we would drive an hour away to the closest free campsite we knew of where we would sleep in a tent. In the morning, we would repeat the same process.

One day, a house popped up at the perfect time when we refreshed Craigslist. We called them, made an appointment and ran over. There was already 4 people that showed up way earlier than their appointment was, trying to take the home from us. As soon as I saw this, I asked the landlord to come in the home so we could talk in private. I didn’t have much to offer him except for a heartfelt plea. The rent was $950 and so was the deposit - Just about every penny we had to our names. I tried to negotiate the rent and deposit but had no power at all so we thankfully agreed to pay the deposit and then pro-rate the other 3 weeks of rent. We were left with $100 for food for the rest of the month. The landlord said ‘Okay but you can’t move in for another few weeks anyways - The house is under construction and we have a lot to do with it.’ I told him we didn’t mind the construction - We just wanted to move in that day. He looked at me crazy but agreed and that night, with no furniture, no bed and barely any money - We fell asleep under a roof for the first time in 10 months.

See, that’s the other part I forgot to mention. Me and Kaylee had really been struggling in St. Louis so, when we hit a break-up point, we naively decided to just run away together. We decided to move to Mexico, where I had lived a few years previously, but the boredom there wasn’t good for Kaylee. Finally, we decided to drive the entire PCH, from the southern tip of Mexico to Alaska and then pick our favorite place out of that trip - And move there. Again, we didn’t have any money for this trip so I would give a photography shoot any chance I could to scrape together any cash to keep going. We spent 10-months on the road for that trip, camping almost the entire time. We lived off campfire meals, sleeping bags and the kindness of strangers. It was a trip of dreams for me - We were both completely free of our inner turmoil because nothing mattered in those moments. There was nowhere to be, nothing to do and no-one to tell us otherwise. We spent months just camping on beaches, fishing for our meals, hiking in the mountains, writing by fires… Just simplifying everything we could to move forward. 

The problems between us didn’t exist because there was no responsibility to pay attention to. We could deal with those issues once reality was necessary again. 

So, when we finally picked a place to move to and actually had a roof to sleep under - I figured we had done the due diligence to have a smooth and easy life together from there. Marriage and kids would come next and we would raise them with the stories of the experiences that brought us to where we were.

Little did I know that all those demons would come right back to Kaylee. Now that we had finally settled down again, we had started going through the same difficulties that caused us to run from St. Louis so long ago. I was so confused and heartbroken - Thinking naively that we had buried them. I was not without fault also - I had falsely placed these high expectations on our relationship, that 10,000 conversations around campfires over the last few months would have surely squashed the battles within. But now I found out that they were just hiding, brilliantly, behind the cover of distraction.

We started to fight and unravel. Kaylee’s desire to play music started pulling us in different circles and routines, falling quickly back into the chaotic choices from St. Louis. She started to disappear again, drink too much and glamorize the messiness that brought us to hell before. The more we tried to communicate during this, the more we disagreed, and the more it pulled us apart until finally - We were done. There was no productive conversations outside of sappy tears and empty heart aches. Fear became the foundation of our relationship and we quickly broke through that fragile shelf to be two people standing on different islands, crying all alone again.

When she disappeared one weekend and I heard rumors that she had cheated on me, there was nowhere else to go together. It was time for the emotional torture of breaking off something that had such beautiful potential, if we had both taken care of it.

We broke up and she moved away. I was left sitting inside the same home that was the home of dreams for us just a few months ago. Wondering what the hell happened. Why we ever stopped the trip. Couldn’t we have ran from those demons forever if we never stopped moving? An impossible feat, of course, but one that gave me more peace than the decision we ended up making. 

I didn’t know anyone in this town and I was desperately alone, physically and in my thoughts. I had no clue where to start even clawing my way back to the surface. Even though I have a great family back at home, I felt millions of miles away from them - Too far away for them to save me from my thoughts. I’m introverted so terrified of reaching out to others to ask for help and be vulnerable with them. One Sunday, I just walked into a church so that I didn’t need to be alone for just one hour. A couple of people approached me kindly and asked me if I was okay but I didn’t let them get close enough to help. My depression was starting to become a blanket I hid behind - Starting to come to a resolute feeling that I probably wouldn’t make it out of this. 

I had fought too hard and too long in this one relationship to start back over. This was now the 2nd major heartbreak of my 20’s and I couldn’t even fathom how anything else would be different moving forward. Maybe this is how life is and always will be. Maybe people will always take advantage of my kindness and use what they need of me but then discard me when they’re finished. Maybe I’ll always have too little self-respect to protect myself in that process.

Or maybe, I lied to myself, I can become hardened by my situations to not feel anymore. It felt nice - Thinking I could flip this around and start to take what I needed from others to fill my own cup, then let them go when they got too close. Maybe I could be numb enough to not feel the love that has caused me so much pain previously. Maybe then, I could be free and comfortable numb.

During these lonely times, I took the only saving grace I could think of to feel a little more connected to others - Social media. 

I started to live for these dopamine hits that would swiftly take me from the dark clouds I was in. They would pull me out for the few seconds it took to read the message but I would often be too sad to respond, starting a spiral that left me feeling more alone. More disconnected from the soul I have inside - One needing to talk to connect with someone in person. In real life. Where there’s awkwardness in conversation and eye contact and maybe even a hug. Just the feeling that there was someone out there, somewhere, who would share in my suffering with me. 

Since I refused to take any risk with meeting people in real life, social media became my only salvation - Yet, my relationship with it brought me farther into the abyss. More disconnected from reality. I would take from it what I could and when I needed it. But I wouldn’t really share with others how much I was struggling and no one knew, since they couldn’t see or hear my pain. Phone calls became almost impossible to have - Since I was inside of my thoughts 24 hours a day and, when I would talk to someone, I wouldn’t even know where to start. So normally, I would just either gloss over any of the pain I was feeling and act like everything was okay. Or I would begin crying right away and struggle with even putting words together. People were caught off guard and I would be embarrassed to share too much so they wouldn’t get close enough to really help. I would awkwardly speed up phone conversations or ignore them all together.

I remember the day very clearly. I woke up on a Sunday and I couldn’t move anymore. I wasn’t crying anymore either - I was just numb. I didn’t sleep much since all I did was think and the thoughts had nowhere to go except run in circles. It was the winter time in the Northwest and the sun rarely shines so I was staring out the window at another grey and cold day. It really was symbolic as it visualized how the inside of my head felt - There was no color in my imagination anymore. No smiles or faces. Just black and white fuzziness - Oddly comfortable since the expectations with it were so low, all I had to do was let it run over me. 

I made up my mind that I couldn’t go on anymore. I had made a victimized response to every emotional problem I was feeling and started to conclude that my depressive responses were logical and correct. 

Yes, I would always be alone. 

If I did give someone a chance to get close to me, they would always hurt me. Love was an impossible voyage, always leaving one person out in the cold, without any power or protection. Friends didn’t really want to get to know my struggles - They just wanted to be there for me when I was fun and light-hearted. Social media was the way of the future - Disconnected snippets of conversation that is heavily edited and thought through. 

So - I started to contemplate suicide. I won’t lie - It was something I had thought about quite a bit before but usually in a distant thought, hidden in the recesses of my mind, that I wouldn’t allow myself to empower. But now, that thought was moving towards the front of my mind - With every illogical conclusion I came to paving the way for it to be the only logical response. Give up and you can finally stop thinking. 

There was one saving grace though. While skateboarding in the snow, a guy stopped me and asked my about politics. I hate politics and didn’t want a single second of the conversation but thankfully, we pivoted to continue our conversation. His name was Teuvo and we got to know each other little by little, exchanging numbers and having deep conversations from time to time. I knew he would have been there to talk to me during my difficult struggles but I was too weak to even ask - Too prideful to be vulnerable enough. Still trying to be cool enough to make a friend based on surface connection.

When suicide started to move towards the front of my mind that Sunday, it terrified me. It was a black void that gently moved in place of my thoughts - like an old friend offering you a cigarette after you worked so hard to quit over the last few years. It knew how low I was and knew I was starting to accept anything outside of how I had been feeling day to day. It was terribly sad, yes, but at least it was the means to an end. 

Thankfully, again, I come from a strong family. Even though these terrifying thoughts became more comfortable with repetition, I simply could not put my family through such pain. They had struggled with me through my rebellious teens, never once giving up on me despite the pain I caused them. 

I also had a constant thought during these times that saved me. When I was 8 years old, I was hit by a car while running across the street. It was very bad - I flipped onto the windshield and the driver slammed on the brakes, causing me to fly down on the street and shatter my head. My entire family witnessed the whole thing and my mom screamed at my dad as he ran towards me ‘Is he dead?! Is he dead?!’ A cousin of mine told me she was holding a stuffed animal of mine as she was screaming these questions - Begging my father to give her some good news. The truth was - They didn’t know. I was limp and broken with blood everywhere. I got life-flighted to the nearest hospital and all they could do was speed to me, to hopefully get any answers from the doctors. 

I can’t imagine how brutal that car ride was.

But it’s this memory that stuck in my mind in my absolute lowest times. My mom grasping my stuffed animal, watching me lay there lifeless, and wanting in any way for me to be okay.

That memory saved me. I couldn’t imagine giving up voluntarily when my family had fought so hard to give me a chance at life. I just could not take the easy route. I had to fight.

I called Teuvo and asked to come over to his home. He said of course but he had to run some errands so I could just hang out while he was gone. I ran up there, needing anything to save me from these thoughts, and immediately felt lighter when I wasn’t alone in them. Still, I wasn’t sharing the depth of my thoughts but just not being alone physically was enough to keep me out of them.

He said he had to run out and left me alone in the home. I walked from room to room, thinking about what a wonderful home this was and how comfortable it felt inside. I found my way to his office and looked at his computer. I sat there for a few minutes and stared at a blank screen but finally, decided to look at a world map to remember how big the world is out there and how much I still wanted to see. I opened up the map and just started. I started to day dream different cultures and sounds that I would hear in each country. I could almost smell the food when I looked at Italy on the map. I dreamt of what it would feel like to walk on the roads in Russia, hearing a language so foreign to me. I dreamed of taking a boat from southern Spain to Casablanca and hearing the ocean lapping on the sides of the boats while we crossed.

And then, I thought about the trains in Europe. I had always dreamed of riding trains through mountains and valleys, exploring new cultures while I did. Hearing conversations from people all around me in each train car. I remembered many years before, when I had taken a train from Poland to the Czech Republic and falling asleep on a sleeper cart. There was a gentleman that worked for the train in our cart and he would knock on the door and ask if we wanted some hot tea. I put the window down and watched the snow capped mountains, drinking tea, while moving through different cultures. 

I wanted to be there. I had never felt so free.

So I came up with a plan to save me from my despair. I didn’t have much money - Just some I had scraped together waiting tables at restaurants - but probably enough to make it to Europe. I looked up cheap flights and found ones going to Denmark for $450, which I could afford, but I just didn’t know what I would do once there. I figured I could buy a Eurail pass and sleep on the trains and go grocery shopping to eat while on them. The problem was - When I looked up tickets for the trains, they were a lot more than I could afford. So that idea fell through and I wasn’t sure how I would move about.

It didn’t matter. I had to escape and I was dying just sitting still here. I didn’t care if it took every penny I had to get to Denmark - What did it matter? I was getting closer to giving up every day and, if I did, that money would mean nothing anyways. At least this way, I could maybe find salvation in movement.

I booked the plane ticket without another thought. I instantly felt lighter and excited. I finally had a plan, rather than just continuing to sink here by myself. Once the plan was made, thoughts flowed easier and they diverted themselves into strategizing how I was going to make this trip work. I was very scared but I didn’t care - At least I felt something. That fear woke me up and hugged me tight, making me feel alive in having something to look forward to. My home would not be my grave anymore. I would go out and bask myself in culture and perspective, hoping to find myself in the process. 

I had no idea what to do about the train tickets and really couldn’t afford to pay for places to stay in Europe so I really brainstormed what to do. In a moment of madness, I decided I had nothing to lose and would reach out to Eurail and ask them to sponsor this trip. What trip though? That I wanted to aimlessly wander through Europe on trains with no direction, to hopefully find something to give me a chance at life? No - I had to make up an idea. Anything really, just something that they might want to take a part in. But what would that be? I could only think from my own perspective of being lonely and lost… But that was depressing. So I finally decided ‘Why not just say I’m going to go around Europe, all by trains, and try to take pictures of all the beauty I see?’ That seemed okay but too general to pitch it to them so I kept trying to refine it. 

Finally, I thought ‘Why not tell them I will be using the trains to connect with people throughout every country? We’re all stuck on this train together, many times for long periods of time, but no one is talking to strangers. So I’ll just take long train rides and try to connect with people as much as possible.’

That was it. I wrote out a long, blabbering email with this idea to them and sent it to the general ‘Contact Us’ page on a corporate website. I didn’t even expect to hear a response. My portfolio was sub-par at the least at the time and I knew my pictures weren’t going to sell it.

A week goes by and no response. I send a follow up email to the same general page. 

The next day, I am surprised to see an email from a guy named Carmen from their marketing division, asking me a bunch of questions. ‘What is it that you plan on doing again?’ ‘What can we expect from you for the sponsorship?’ ‘What if it doesn’t work and people don’t want to connect with you?’ 

I had no idea how to respond to these and was making it up as I went. I just put together my thoughts in another long, blabbering email to them - giving them 2 pages of text when they only wanted a few bullet points. 

Nothing could have prepared me for the email I got the next day.

“We have gone through your responses with our team and have decided that, yes, we would love to sponsor you for this idea! How about we give you an unlimited pass for 30 days - That you can use to ride any train, anytime, to anywhere you would like that Eurail services.’

I remember screaming at the top of my lungs when I got that email. I read through it 100 times looking for the fine print but it wasn’t there. I had a plan finally - A plan that would take me far away from the pain I had been feeling for so long. I wasn’t sure if I was running again or not - But I didn’t have the luxury to decide at that time. 

I just needed to move. 

Eurail overnighted the pass to me and I refreshed the tracking number so many times, I would’ve thought I could have willed it to be there. 

Then, the day before my flight was to leave, the Eurail pass arrived. I was free. I was going to make it. I had something to look forward to and a decision to go out there and find myself. I knew deep down that only good things came from that decision and I would be lighter each day. 

The next day, I left to find myself in the only place I knew how to - Outside of my comfort zone. 

Sample of personal writing - Key takeaways after my recent Mexico trip:

-

Interestingly enough, I was not depressed for even one moment the entire trip. And I have had to work through mental health battles through most of my adult life. I was reminded, as I always am, that when I take away the luxury of overthinking, worry and boredom away, my life is significantly lighter and I am always present.

On top of that, when I takeaway the luxury of always feeling comfortable, I am always awake and engaged and in that awareness, I am most alive. And what a beautiful thing that truly is.

Two, it takes me absolutely nothing to change lives if you’re paying attention. Rarely just giving money, taking the time to stop and engage with those who need help is enough to get smiles and laughter. Then, through that conversation, we can learn how to help in sustainable ways. Many times, this costs me very little but the result is worth more than any amount of money. I get a chance to show them and myself that the world is better than we might have thought and for me, I am renewed and reminded that true joy always comes from giving.

On that same note, I was reminded this trip that I also need to ask for help from the world to make as big of an impact as possible. People love to help and many times, they only need to be asked to do so. With their help, I can make sure I don’t just travel in and out of these countries but leave a footprint of compassion in each and every place I visit.

A constant reminder that I cannot do this all by myself.

Three, I was fortunate to spend one week here all by myself and one week with Jack, filming the show. I resisted filming this project for a very long time because I love to travel alone and because I was worried that filming would change the dynamics of these conversations.

Thankfully, I ended up finding the opposite. I have found that, when people are given a chance to tell their story to the world, they light up with the understanding that we are genuinely interested in what they have to say... and appreciate it enough that they want to share it with as many people as possible. This gives them a moment that they do not forget and I can guarantee sets a ripple effect in the lives they will touch from there on out.

I still enjoy traveling alone but for very different reasons. Traveling with someone else keeps me accountable and keeps me moving. It gives me someone to bounce ideas off and strategize how to make the biggest impact possible with.

And believe me, this took a lot of swallowing my pride and ego to open my travels up to other people and show more of them - And I do it only in the hopes it inspires others to do the same.

Last, complaining is just an awful quality for any of us to have (And I am talking to myself too). It serves no purpose other than to reinforce your negativity and bring those down around you. It also teaches others to do to the same and it cheapens your relationship with them - As much more constructive things are possible with a more rational perspective. With the right perspective, we can shift complaining into a constructive conversation to work through our problems and lighten our lives through the process.

In my observations all over the world, 6 kids with a $0.50 cent soccer ball on a dirt street exudes more happiness than 100 kids with a tablet. To find true joy, I think we need to first get rid of all the stimulus. Turn off your phone more often and leave it at home as much as you can. And just go out into the real world and pay attention to see how beautiful reality can truly be. Phones are making people fall asleep mentally and are tearing apart the fabric of connection that we ALL desperately need so much now. This world feels alone. Trust me. And SO few people are listening and asking questions about others that even though we spend time together, many people feel isolated.

All it takes is one long trip to a 3rd world country to be reminded what life is like when people don't have phones or technology - It is connected. It is conversational. It is simplified. It is alive.

Mexico reminded me exactly what I needed to be reminded of when I travel. That life is abundant in every direction if you’re paying attention and, the more you are, the more you can be changed through experience alone. When you are distracted, you are creating a false reality of comfort and stimulus that does not help with sustainable methods of working through mental health.