Are You New Here?

Why yes, I am.

I will start with a short yet hopefully interesting introduction of myself. My name is Lauren, and as most people would probably assume, I'm your basic girl from Southern California. Traveling the world to find a deeper meaning and yada, yada, yada. The world has always been an interesting, yet scary oyster for me and it took me some time, mental strength, and a good amount of heartbreak to give me the balls to finally get up and go.

I left my hometown in 2013 with no intention of returning. I attended Santa Barbara City College and ended up staying 6 1/2 years longer than planned living between Isla Vista and Downtown Santa Barbara. At 18 years old, on your own for the first time, Isla Vista might as well be a meth lab. You're hooked from the get-go and have no intentions of coming back to reality. Who would be stupid enough to leave babes, beers, and beaches?? But two years in I outgrew it and my time soon expired. I had seemed to hit the point my parents predicted for me. "Just wait, all this will get old" they would say. Yeah right, mom and dad, I'm never going to be like you. I'll save you some time, just accept it. I'm now 27 and let me tell ya, I would much rather be cuddled up with a fat bowl of pasta on my lap in bed on a Saturday night.

A few years of school went by, I was 22, still in Santa Barbara, and in quite a dark place. I was working in hospitality switching between mornings as a waitress at the Four Seasons and picking up bartending shifts when I could at a local nightclub in town. There was a lot of partying, more than I'd like to admit. It was easy to fall into comforting moments with strangers. Confess one another's deepest despair and then disappear from each other's lives with only the blurry memories of their darkest secrets.

By this time, I was desperate for anything or anyone that would help dig me out of my self-induced misery. I could barely get out of bed in the mornings, lost 15 pounds, and had crippling anxiety I didn't even know existed. My friends, bless their souls, did what they could but in the end, I knew it was something I would have to overcome myself. So, in a quick moment, I decided best to move out of my beloved apartment and travel 2 1/2 months to Bali, Thailand, and Australia with my best friend. We started with a work abroad program in Bali for 4 weeks teaching English and then got a bit unhinged for the remainder. We split it up to have a perfect balance, and it ended up changing my life. I balled leaving the kids we were teaching in Bali and they will forever have a place in my soul.

The short version of this experience is, it was magic with a sprinkle of my own personal torture. I am overall a quite worrisome person and it was a culture shock, to say the least. My best friend talked me off the ledge a few times throughout our travels and I tried my best to kick it into high gear. Who the hell feels anxiety in paradise?

I eventually pulled myself out of that pit of dreaded anguish because it wasn't about me anymore. For me, it opened a door to a whole new perspective of the world. How different, yet extremely similar we are as human beings. What we crave as individuals whether it's adventure, lust, happiness, desire, and how simple it can be. While still being extremely aware of the dark and unfortunate fate people around the world have, simply because they are born in a contrasting area of the planet. There was so much for me to learn now and it was never-ending.

I haven't stopped traveling since, I couldn't bear being stagnant much longer. Since leaving Bali, I have returned twice, lived in Australia for almost a year, hopped over to Barcelona, a few round trips to New York, Colorado, Oregon, drove the whole country of Croatia, and now currently living in the devastatingly beautiful country of Mexico. I am writing this to have an ease of reminders that life is destructive and hard, but simultaneously divine and worth it. To whoever needs inspiration, I hope I can give you some.