When you step outside of what’s familiar, you start to see things differently. You see things you never would have if you just stayed put. You meet people from all over the world. You realize how big life actually is, and at the same time how similar people are everywhere. It humbles you, in a good way.
There’s something else I’ve been thinking about, too. I’ve had a copy of "The Little Prince" with me here, the Portuguese edition (O Pequeno Príncipe, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry). I haven’t fully read it, but I know the idea behind it. As we grow up, we lose something. We lose that sense of wonder, that ability to just notice things, to be curious, to see life simply. Kids naturally have that. They are present, they explore, they don’t overcomplicate everything. Somewhere along the way, we forget how to do that.
I think being here has reminded me of that in a very real way. Just walking through Lisbon, visiting places like Sintra, or even just sitting and taking things in, those moments seem small, but they stay with you if you actually let them. It is that kind of simple awareness that I think I had lost at some point when I was younger, and that I have slowly been learning to recover again through experiences like this.
I’ll be honest about something else. At one point, my host told me, “You didn’t come to Portugal to sleep.” And she was right. I had gotten into a routine of just going through the days, waking up, going to class, coming back, and repeating the same pattern. I stayed too comfortable for a while and didn’t go out or explore as much as I could have. I’m still learning from that. Life doesn’t wait for you to feel ready. You have to step into it, even if it’s just a little at a time.
