Transition

I’ve begun to realise that twenty-two is a very important transient time in my life.

Through my life and my travels I have made a great deal of friends, many of whom are in the monumental stages of graduating from University, settling down, starting a career and/or starting a family. I am not yet doing any of these things – and that’s okay. I don’t feel the need to fit my life to someone else’s timeline.
Yet, I will be joining my friends in these adult endeavours soon enough.

But, for now, I am transitioning. I’m transitioning from youth to adulthood, from inexperienced to mature, from trepidation to bravery. Studying in Sydney is a transition between my undergraduate years in America and a postgraduate degree who knows where. Graduating is a transition from my studies to my career. Travelling is a transition from where I have been to where I am going, from what I know to what I am yet to discover. Twenty-two is a transition from who I was to who I will be. Each of these stages is a stepping-stone in life, not an end goal but a progression from one point to the next. And I’m enjoying every stage of the journey so far.

It is important to remember not to compare ourselves to those around us. Life cannot be measured in someone else's accomplishments. It is easy to look around you and be afraid that you have not accomplished as much as your neighbour, or that you are more successful than your peer. This is not the case. You have accomplished, you are successful. And so are others. We are all successful in our own way, all achieve our own standards of happiness. If you are not happy yet, keeping trying. But keep trying for your own sake, not to feel as though you are competing with someone else.
As long as you believe something, it can become reality. As long as you keep trying you can keep succeeding.

Living life in constant motion makes it easy to feel as though I am running from the inevitable; from the expectations of a ‘real job’, ‘real home’, ‘real life’. Yet I keep running. I’m playing hopscotch through my life until I find something, someone, or somewhere that makes the idea of permanence finally more comforting than terrifying. I’ve always believed that a healthy dose of fear keeps us aware and alive.

I am in constant motion… but I am still young, I’m not tired yet.

"Freedom"

Disadvantage (noun): an unfavorable circumstance or condition that reduces the chances of success or effectiveness.

Not many people that know me would describe me as disadvantaged. In fact, they may say I am being indulgent in claiming so. I am incredibly fortunate in my financial support and my ability to achieve what I set my mind to. Whether this is for material reasons, or because I’m too stubborn to give up makes no matter.
Yet, ‘freedom’ is an incredibly relative term. And while I have had the constant freedom in my life to attempt to make my own dreams a reality, I have often times not been granted the freedom of state in order to achieve just that.

I was born on a small rock in the Caribbean Sea. It’s not much, but it’s home. Many of my peers were born on bigger rocks. My rock has a name that does not hold much weight behind it: Trinidad. Trinidad & Tobago, while a beautiful tropical isle, does not hold much influence in the geopolitical arena. Whereas my counterparts born on the bigger rocks that go by the names The United States of American, or The United Kingdom, or even Australia – these bigger rocks that seem more ‘useful’ in the eye of global politics – these people are lucky. These people have a freedom I will never know.

In my life and years of traveling no word has ever filled me with such dread as the word “visa”. Oftentimes I forget that I am disadvantaged. That because of where I was born and who I am I have to jump through extra hoops and pay extra money to do what my American or English or Australian friends can do without a second thought.

Once upon a time this wonderful earth of ours was one big rock. As time passed and natural phenomenon occurred this rock split into separate continents and these continents into individual countries. And each country is wonderfully and uniquely beautiful. It wasn’t until people came along and made our world a political mayhem that it became so unrealistically difficult to share in the earth we all call our home.

Because I was born on a smaller rock, because my little blue book is not as blue as an American’s or red like a Brit’s, because my little home does not have much to offer on a global and fiscal political scale these countries that I hope to visit one day have no reason to let me in. Not because I want to learn from them, not because I want to see their home and commit it to memory, not because I grow every day by experiencing new cultures and I hope I can offer the same to anyone I meet. No, I can’t offer political advantage, my country is not a powerhouse of trade so globally, most doors are shut to me.

Yes, I can apply to be granted the permission to enter a country once I make a good case and prove that I have the funds to make it worth their while. Yes, I am lucky enough that I can, and do, do this successfully. But I am a citizen of this earth just like anyone else. We should all be granted the same freedoms. What is this world if not all of ours to discover?

If we can, we should. And we should be able to.