Looking back, I think I was much braver when I was younger.
It was probably not because I was a stronger person back then. Maybe I simply knew less about what my choices could lead to, and what I might have to give up because of them.
When I had just started university, I really liked meeting new people and putting myself in new environments.
I liked the feeling of being somewhere unfamiliar.
When I entered a place where nobody knew me and I knew nothing about it, excitement somehow came before fear.
Because I did not know what would happen, I felt like anything could happen. I thought it might take me somewhere better.
So whenever I became a little too familiar with one environment, I started wanting to go somewhere else.
When things began to feel comfortable, I actually became uncomfortable.
I felt like I was standing still. If I did not keep pushing myself into new situations, I thought I would fall behind.
Looking back now, I think for a long time I saw discomfort as proof that I was growing.
I always wanted to live abroad
Since I was young, one of my dreams had always been to live in another country.
Not just travel there, but actually live there.
I could have stayed somewhere familiar and continued with a stable life, but I kept telling myself the same thing.
If I never went abroad, I would regret it for the rest of my life.
I still do not really know why I used to think about choices in such an extreme way. Back then, “I have to try this now” was much stronger in me than “maybe someday.”
So when I finally started living abroad, at first it was everything I had wanted.
New people.
A new language.
A new city.
A place where nobody knew me, and I did not know anyone either.
Just thinking about what kind of life I could create there made me excited.
I had so much energy then.
Even when I had to travel almost three hours every day, I did not think it was that difficult.
Learning how a new country worked, meeting people, and solving things in a language I was not familiar with felt more like an experience than something tiring.
But once I got used to it, I wanted to leave again
As time passed, life in the new country eventually became normal.
I knew where to buy groceries.
I knew how to get around.
I learned how to deal with administrative things.
I could more or less predict what I needed to do.
My life became a routine.
And that was when I started looking for another environment again.
For a long time, I thought I needed to keep putting myself in challenging situations. Or maybe I did not even think about it consciously. I just naturally pushed myself into those situations.
As more time passed, I felt like I should also be achieving something new.
Whenever I started feeling comfortable, I would think, “Is it really okay to stay like this?”
Maybe that part of me helped me experience many different things in a relatively short period of time.
But there was another side to it.
When you are always looking for what comes next, you can start preparing to move again before you have really experienced where you are now.
You collect more new experiences, but you may spend less time going deeply into one thing and building something from it.
And now, in the life I once wanted, I find myself thinking about stability
People are strange.
I wanted new environments for such a long time.
But now that I have more freedom than before to experience different places, I find myself thinking about stability instead.
The younger version of me probably would have loved the situation I am in now.
Living in a new city, moving somewhere else, and building a new daily life again.
In some ways, it is quite close to the life I once wanted.
But the person I am now does not welcome every change as easily as I used to.
Now I know what it means to start again in a new place.
I have to find a home again.
Build my daily routes again.
Meet people again.
Learn where I should go and where I should not go.
Understand another unfamiliar system.
And now I also know that whenever I choose something, there is usually something else I have to give up.
Maybe because I understand the world a little more than I did before, I can also see the cost that comes with a choice more clearly.
So sometimes I wonder.
Did I become more afraid as I got older?
Or do I simply have more things I want to protect now?
I no longer think moving itself means I am growing
In the past, staying in one place for too long made me feel like I was becoming stuck.
Going somewhere new, starting something new, and meeting new people seemed like the clearest proof that I was moving forward.
I see it a little differently now.
It takes courage to enter a new environment.
But I think it also takes a different kind of courage to stay somewhere and build something more deeply.
Keeping relationships for a long time.
Doing one thing long enough to really understand it.
Building your own way of doing things and your own place within it.
Continuing to make something even after the excitement of the beginning is gone.
I used to think of these things simply as stability.
Now I think they can also be a kind of growth.
Maybe I did not become a coward after all.
When I was younger, I mostly saw what I could gain from a new choice.
Now I can also see what I might lose because of it.
And more than anything, the number of new experiences is not as important to me as what those experiences leave behind in my life.
I still like new places.
I will probably continue to be curious about new cities, and if I get the chance, I will still want to move and experience them.
But I do not think I will see moving itself as growth in the same way anymore.
What I want now is for the things I do in one place to continue into the next.
For my experiences not to disappear every time I move.
For something to keep building, even when the place around me changes.
Maybe that is the kind of moving life I want now.