Wanderlust

"It is not down in any map; true places never are" – Herman Melville

Wanderlust: probably one of the most cliched topic to write on, wouldn’t you agree? And yet somehow, we can never seem to get enough of it. Wanderlust is often described as a deep longing to wander or travel and explore the world. Whether it be actually travelling around the world or writing poetic nuances about it, we have fantasised both for centuries. Ever since man first came into being, he has longed to travel, to explore. The curiosity of the world runs in our blood. At some point in life, everybody longs to travel, to meet new people, to alter destinies. And so, we do. We trod through from one place to another leaving our footprints, our essence behind.

We wish for that spontaneous urge that would take us away from our routine life, for that one different turn on the way to school or office. We dream of beautiful sunlit sceneries and snow-capped mountains, and above it all, we dream of meeting charming, exquisite people. Maybe people who share the same urge to unravel the shifts and turns of the world, as we do. We design constellations in our minds and try to cloak the entire night sky with wishes upon falling stars. And we do this from the moment we are born. Itching to know more about the world we live in, we soak up every information, every landscape we can find. And then we turn them into memories and store it someplace in our mind’s map.

However, ironically enough, in the end, we all come back to someone we love. Eventually, instead of getting lost in the mountains, we long to get lost in their eyes. Instead of finding adventures between trees, we hope to explore the beauty of someone else's thoughts. In the beginning, it's about wanting to dive into new opportunities. But in the end, it’s about unravelling down to your roots. The true places in the world can never be enclosed within maps because they exist within each of us.And they remain, waiting to be explored because we believe wanderlust is about ticking off places in our maps. But wanderlust comes from within, it’s the sentiments of our souls. Who truly matter are the people you want to spend your life with. It doesn't matter if you're chilling by Bondi Beach in Sydney or driving through beautiful sun-filled avenues in Los Angeles or even reading novels in an English library in London with them. Nothing matters as long as you're with them and they are with you. And yet somehow that makes all the difference in the world.