Confessions of a New Adventurer
That became my identity once—back when I had a small website full of blog posts, a YouTube channel, and a name I had pieced together from a random generator and a gut feeling. Confessions of a New Adventurer called to me because I wanted to share the real parts of solo travel: the good, the bad, and the beautifully messy moments that come with wandering into the unknown.
But three years later, I’ve learned something I didn’t understand then: adventure isn’t always a plane ticket or a new city. Sometimes it’s changing the job you’ve held for three years. Sometimes it’s risking your heart in your first real relationship. Sometimes it’s walking back into school after you thought you were done. And sometimes the adventure is publishing a book—one you’ve woven with pieces of yourself you never thought you’d show anyone.
I’ve realized that the “new adventure” isn’t always out there somewhere. Often, it’s in the staying. The stillness. The quiet becoming.
And maybe that’s the point: no matter where we are or how old we get, we are always new at something—always stumbling into the next chapter, always beginning again.
We are all new adventurers, forever.
Confessions of a New Adventurer: The Traffic Lights of Life
I’m always sprouting some philosophical nonsense that I can never quite seem to follow through on. But how much wisdom does a 22-year-old really have? I’d like to think I carry more wisdom—or maturity—than I actually do. Sometimes I get so caught up in pretending to be above it all: the hurt, the drama, the petty things we, as humans, get so bent out of shape about. The way I take things to heart, the way I feel so deeply, has always felt more like a burden than a gift.
The heart acts like a traffic light at a busy intersection. Red lights appear when trauma happens—whether physical or emotional. Trauma can be so gut-wrenching it feels like the emergency brake being pulled while you’re going ninety miles per hour. It forces you to stop, whether you’re ready or not. Most of the time the stop is gradual, but occasionally that e-brake slams without warning.
Those inconvenient red lights can lead you to question the very point of life. When you hit one red light after another, when you can’t seem to catch a break, I sometimes find myself asking—what the fuck is the point? It’s heavy, especially because I know I don’t want to feel this way forever. The lows feel heavier than the highs.
Yellow lights are the aftermath of those red lights. They’re the slowdowns that force us to examine the trauma, the mistake, the experience—to take an outward look at our lives.
And then there are green lights. Those moments feel like the top of the world. Green lights are the moments when everything feels aligned, even if just for a second. They’re the stretches of road where you don’t have to overthink every move, where your chest feels lighter and your thoughts finally quiet down. Green lights don’t always announce themselves loudly. Sometimes they’re subtle—waking up without dread, laughing without forcing it, realizing you made it through something that once felt impossible.
Green lights are proof that you’re moving again. That, despite the red lights that stopped you in your tracks and the yellow lights that made you hesitate, life still opens up. They remind you that healing isn’t linear, that joy can exist alongside the mess, and that forward motion doesn’t always require certainty.
Sometimes green lights look like clarity. Other times they look like peace. They might be a small win, a gentle moment, or a sudden realization that you trust yourself a little more than you used to. They don’t mean the road ahead is clear forever—just that, right now, you’re allowed to go.
And maybe that’s the beauty of green lights: not that they last, but that they return. Over and over again. Even after you’ve been stopped. Even after you’ve doubted everything. They show up as quiet permission to keep living, to keep trying, to keep becoming.