The Powerful Travel Memories that Hold Me
Reading time: 3 mins, 42 seconds
Travel memories live imprinted in my mind forever. Moments that are mixed with the meaningful and mundane, yet all of them equally touching. I get shot back easily to moments abroad in vivid visions so clear that reality sometimes slips through my fingers.
I’d almost think I was still there.
And that is one of the purely magical, life-long effects of purposeful travel. Stories, places, people, and fleeting moments that you’re privileged to visit for the rest of your life in the comfort of your own mind. No matter the time and space that passes until your next plane ticket purchase.
After spending two years in China, these are a collection of such memories that play in my head both day and night. Sometimes they are called back by looking at old pictures, and other times they come out of nowhere, catching me by surprise -
I’m standing at the closest bus stop to my 24th floor apartment after walking through the courtyard of one of Chongqing’s largest malls outside of my front door. It’s late summer and I’m already sweating on every surface of my body. Excited to hop on a route I’d never taken before and spend the day exploring one of ‘Mountain City’s’ popular peaks.
I’m walking across the street to my apartment in tears after my first break-up
My VPN finally just connected so that I can watch Netflix shows from home, eat pizza, and enjoy a cozy night in. Creating a comfort refuge from the China outside that has been hard to acclimate.
I’m on stage wearing a sparking dress in front of 500 people, the largest crowd to have ever stared at me in-person. I’m holding a microphone, feeling unqualified yet assuming confidence for the 3 hours of company awards and shows.
I walk around the corner and into my classroom to be met with 4-year-old voices ringing a chorus of, ‘BREDA!!!! BREDA!!!’
I’m in the backseat of a taxi-cab. Unsure of where I am headed in this memory (hot pot? karaoke?), but I seem content as I sit in silence staring out at the countless giant skyscrapers holding my Chongqing neighbors.
I’m on the receiving end of a smile that fills the entire face of my favorite server at a neighborhood noodle shop.
I’m in-between classes, quickly finishing cafeteria food from Mr. Rice in the basement of the building where I worked.
I’m navigating my way out of the hospital maze after another round of tests failed to tell me what exactly is wrong with my gut. Feeling defeated. Holding back tears and wearing a smile while passing mumblings of ‘Look mom, a foreigner!’ or ‘Do you think she understands us?’ or ‘Whoa a foreign beauty!’ Smiling, but wishing nothing more to be home and out from under the microscope of local, curious eyes. Wishing I could feel vulnerable in private.
I’m riding in the backseat of a car at night. The lights of hot pot mountain shine outside of our windows while I witness my friend from home taking in Chongqing with fresh eyes.
I’m walking. To work? From work? I can’t tell. But I see myself and the familiar street. I hear the familiar noise of shopkeepers calling out for business, kids crying, and adults playing card games in the street.
I’m sitting in the lobby of my apartment building at 3am with one of my best friends. Crying about the world, laughing about and loving who we have become in the context of a country so different from the one that shaped us. Gratitude that a city on the other side of the globe brought us such deep friendship and introspection.
Travel memories are as powerful as the travel itself. The fact that a specific time and place in the past can bring you right back on a moment’s notice physically has the ability to take my breath away while shaping my emotions to perfectly replicate those of the version of me in my past. Worlds away, and yet I’m somehow transported to the exact feelings of that one blip in time.
I consider this to be one of the best benefits of travel, and one of my favorite parts of this magical human experience.
My list of recurring vivid memories goes on forever while these motion pictures play on the big screen in my mind no matter if I’m asleep or awake.
Can’t believe I have lifetime access to this database of color and emotion.
A subscription I’m happy to pay with all the time in the world.
