Pursue your goals and dreams… At lest that is the phrase I believe is embedded in the lucky youth’s minds that is generation Y. This is what is supposed to give us purpose in life, and complete us. I myself qualify as a member of this emotionally troublesome generation, and I must say that this quest of dream chasing and accomplishments has left me feeling lonely on many occasions.

Now I’m not going to pretend and bitch about how hard life is, while secretly bragging about my accomplishments, and try to turn this into a “success story”. Truth is I’m where I want to be currently, been through a lot…really a lot, I had to discover, work a lot, all that so I can get here. That is all nice, but the funny downside is dealing with the loneliness that accompanies me on every journey that I take.

After some years of being cocooned in a shell that is called the comfort zone, I’ve decided to “hatch”, swallow the emotions (like fear, insecurity, sadness, etc) that are actually forming my cocoon, and follow where the heart and opportunities set my course on. The comfort zone was my ultimate fear and enemy back then… Hell it may even still is… The constant feelings of monotony, melancholia, routine, soulless days slowly began invading my psyche as a persistent siege army, and making me question a lot of stuff about me and my life. Funny how in moments like that we often dwell on the past (the good old days syndrome, as I like to call it), on our youth and carefree days… and how often we get soaked up in sadness that maybe those days are forever gone, and all that awaits us is more monotony, melancholia, routine and more invasion-prone soulless days. Turning a new page, and making a change is not as easy as it sounds in those bestselling self-help books… especially not for emotionally sensitive introvert whiners like myself.

But eventually we man up, and just do it… Do that change that we desperately desire to… I did it, crashed my comfort shell to pieces, and went to do things that I dreamed I would do. As with everything in life, not all is as what we imagine to be. Yes, it is a fulfilling experience to learn and explore, and don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t take my decision back… I’m just trying to understand if the loneliness that is often my side-kick is going to stick around forever… or it will find something better to do? Maybe I was expecting maybe a bit too much of it all. The world wasn’t sitting and waiting for me to arrive… I didn’t get discovered by secret superhero organization, didn’t uncover my hidden Jedi powers, didn’t become Batman, didn’t had a Before Sunrise romance, didn’t bang top models each night… maybe these high expectations and the fact I didn’t connect with the world as I expected I would, contribute to the loneliness that I feel… I don’t know. I’ve had a lot of good and bad moments, a lot of memorable journeys (even some adventures), met interesting people, had a few romances, learned more about the world, widened my perspectives… simply put, I grew. And I still need to continue doing so, because there are lot of things yet to experience.

However this doesn’t change the fact that I am currently alone on my journey in life. All the people that I knew my whole life, are back home. All the family, closest drinking buddies, crushes…

While traveling to new places, meeting new people, connecting and exploring is all memorable and fulfilling experience, I still can’t shake this feeling I get sometimes, that I’m missing something inside… Something to make me complete.

And for the end… a photo finish.

I don’t own this picture, I found it somewhere where I can’t even remember now… but it’s damn powerful.