Paris: Back from the round-the-world trip

Paris, 3 January 2016

I'm back :-)! So I've literally gone around the world... It hasn't really sunk in yet. My great fear, even before starting this trip, was that I'd be depressed when I got home, that I'd be terribly sad — that's what kept coming up on the blogs of people doing something similar to what I was doing. I don't really feel that at the moment. There's a lot of emotion when I look back at photos, or when I think about all the wonderful people I got to meet... but above all, when I look ahead, I think about all the possibilities opening up and I'm hugely excited by that.

That's what this trip really taught me: the future, when it's full of uncertainty, can genuinely offer us fine things, and opportunities can appear behind every new and unforeseen turn. It really depends on how you look at it. Today I may be closing one of the most enjoyable parentheses of my life... But I fully intend to open others and to make the most of each one, as intensely as I possibly can. Most of the time, I know it will come down to choices... How I take things, how I absorb the setbacks that come along...

During that year of travel I had some moments of doubt, of feeling low (apparently that happens when you travel alone)... I always picked myself up from those situations more or less quickly, because I kept telling myself that I was travelling, that I was lucky, that I should make the most of it... So I made the choice not to let myself slide.. and it worked. The idea now is to keep that frame of mind, whatever my situation.