Not all those who are lost are wandering

Summer is the season of somewhere else.

And if you’re listening to this while traveling, somewhere coastal and exotic, maybe, or cobblestoned and ancient, then congratulations! You’re living the kind of story we’ve been taught to romanticize.

You feel brave for ordering lunch in a language you barely speak. You take pictures of people who look different from you, caption it all with “gratitude,” and return home a little more worldly.

I’m not here to shame that, I’ve done it too.

But today, I want to talk about something else. Something far more extraordinary.

The kind of travel that doesn’t end. The kind that reshapes you from the inside out.

The kind of travel that asks you to audition for belonging, every single day.

Because that’s what it feels like to live somewhere other than where you were born.

Like becoming an actor in someone else’s production. Learning the cues, the rhythm, the rules.

Figuring out when to speak, how to carry yourself, and where your accent makes people pause.

Rewriting yourself in small, careful ways: humor, posture, the way you ask for help.

And all of that can be bold, and part of the journey of growth, bit let’s not lie to ourselves: it can also be lonely and quietly exhausting.

My issue is that we rarely speak about it with the same wonder we give to vacation reels and travel blogs.

Because in the world we’re shaping - this hot, fast, border-bound world- travel as privilege is celebrated, while travel for opportunity is criminalized.

One is called wanderlust. The other? Just migration.

One gets aesthetic content in the pages of glossy magazines. The other gets headlines and heat maps. But what we fail to see is that both begin with a desire to leave.

Both are acts of movement and reinvention.

I’ve lived enough in-between spaces to know that for some of us, the journey isn’t about escape it’s about endurance.

There’s usually no return flight, no out-of-office reply. It’s just life, in translation. Everyday.

I’ve lived in several countries now, and I still hesitate every time someone asks me, “Where are you from?”

Because the answer changes depending on where I am and who’s asking.

It used to make me feel fragmented.

Now, I see it as a kind of cultural shapeshifting that isn’t about pleasing others but about protecting the parts of myself that don’t always fit people’s little categories.

It doesn’t photograph well, but it’s real.

And there’s one memory I always come back to.

A few years ago, I spent Christmas alone in Accra. I was an intern at the French embassy: I was young, ambitious, grateful to be working internationally.

The day had been full and busy, and I smiled a lot to reassured people that I was fine.

But when I came home to my little apartment that night, the silence was loud.

I was alone: no family. No smell of food from the kitchen. No familiar voices. Just me, sitting on the couch, emotionally jet-lagged from a day of pretending I wasn’t lonely.

But the thing that broke me open a little, that actually made me sad, wasn’t just being alone.

It was realizing that so many people lived like that all the time.

That there are millions of people who spend holidays, birthdays, and entire life milestones in foreign cities because they made a decision for a better life.

A decision fora better life that came at the cost of proximity, touch, and the comfort of being seen in your mother tongue.

And I remember thinking: What kind of life is that, when the people you love most aren’t there to see you live it?

That’s the part of global movement we don’t talk about enough. Not the fun adventure but the absence and what you quietly grieve and yet, keep going.

Keep building.

Keep showing up with grace in places that were never designed for your thriving.

That is what I mean by superhuman strength.

If your calendar is out of sync with your loved ones, if your voice sounds different depending on the room, you are not lost.

You are layered. You are not rootless. You are radiant.

You are rehearsing a future most people don’t even know is coming.

And this episode is for you.

Thank you for listening. If this episode stirred something in you—if you’ve ever lived between places, languages, or cultures—I hope you feel a little more seen.

Until next time… may you keep finding beauty between places.