By Mansi Tiwari

All my life I told myself I loved travelling. That once I grow up, only thing I wanna do is travel. I want to see the world, experience other cultures, wake up in new cities blah blah. Once I accepted and understood that I may be ND, I sat myself down and asked me, do I really love travelling? As in, do “I” love it, or is it another one of those things that I picked up from my surroundings and taught myself to love because that’s the normal thing? Because who does not like travelling, that sounds absurd.

So for me, the first step was not even why I am the way I am. The first step was, who am I? If I was the last person on this earth tomorrow, there is absolutely no one else left, I don’t need to please anyone, gain anyone’s approval, get anybody’s validation, who would I be then?

To be honest, I know now that I don’t like travelling. I do want to see the world and all of that, but waking up in a new place, not knowing what my day is going to look like, where my next meal is, is my mattress comfortable, is it clean, do I have enough clean clothes, did I get all my essentials, or did I miss something. Holy moly!! Just typing it I can feel my anxiety riling up. I don’t like travelling. And I don’t know why I fooled myself all these years, but thankfully I don’t have to do it anymore.

That doesn’t mean I will never travel again. I most definitely will. But now I also know that travelling worsens my anxiety, and it does that because of my need for order, predictability and control. So when I do decide to travel, I will make accommodations for the way I feel, and will be able to handle myself better and make it a tolerable experience, I hope.

This is why it’s important. Not so that I can label myself a certain way, but simply so that I can be honest with myself, finally.

I kind of look at it as if, all these years, I was picking up a little bit of everyone around me. And by the time I was 27, I felt like all I was, was a collage of these tiny tiny mirrors. I was a reflection of everyone else around me. And then understanding how my brain works finally gave me the permission to shed all those tiny mirrors and just be authentically me. I still absorb a lot from all the people around me, but I have a filter system in place. If it doesn’t align with my values, I don’t want to adopt it. I am no more trying to add another mirror to reflect the person in front of me to gain their approval. Because if they look at me and they see themselves, then they will definitely like me right!!

It’s been a journey back to myself, back to my forever home.