It’s about time to leave for Quito, and the transformation is already extraordinary. Sitting in the Redwoods, my back against a sixty-five foot tree, I have began to learn that comfort lies within one’s self, probably, more than expected.
Leaving my home in Huntington Beach, my family and friends, everything I had grown accustomed to, I have already found myself gaining more confidence as the days pass by like the dead leaves that rest on the ground’s surface. I have found myself gaining more comfort in the unknown, not less.
Comfort lies heavily in the trust that is placed in each individual’s inner self and like these hundred-year-old trees my roots are keeping me together, strapped stably to the floor. That is not to say I am homesick (for I am not), but rather to acknowledge that I have created such a solid ground for myself that I can find comfort in such a new environment. I created new friendships (with people I have never spoken to prior), met inspiring mentors (who have already started influencing a greater change in me), and became part of a new (and quite bigger) family with my 2016 cohort.
These trees are so tall and grand because they make themselves that way. I have been taught that it is nearly impossible to find comfort in new places if there is none existing in one’s self.
I am comfortable alone in the cabin, as well as when seated near the campfire with seventy-eight other fellows.
I am comfortable in the forest, the Redwoods, as I will be in Quito, Ecuador.
And I am comfortable in myself now, as I will continue to be while this journey into the unknown continues.
