By Addi
In preparation for the Africa backpacking portion of my gap year, I was sucked into the rabbit hole of incessant blog reading and movie watching about how the backpacker lifestyle leaves one completely changed (“more mature!”, “more capable!”, “more confident!”). I, too, hoped to come out the other side of my own experience as a completely changed woman, with entirely new perspectives and worldviews. I envisioned arriving home just in time to be the star of the show at Christmas dinner, armed with loads of travel stories about just how grown and worldly I’d become.
During the overnight bus ride from Cape Town to Johannesburg that marked the start of my trip, I mulled over my ambitions. What was I doing? How could I make the most of the experience? What would I take away from it? As the weeks went by and I hopped from hostel to hostel, bus to bus, country to country, ambition became apprehension that these questions staining my consciousness would go unanswered. Though I was immersed in a new culture, surrounded by new people, and certainly accruing a host of new and exciting stories, my own identity seemed to remain unchanged.
Six weeks, six countries, close to 3000 miles, and 88 hours on buses later, I felt twice as cloudy as I’d been before, frustrated by my fruitless search for clarity. I didn’t suddenly know who I was or all that I stood for. I hadn’t achieved ultimate maturity, capability, and confidence. I had most certainly not transformed my perspectives and worldviews. I started extrapolating my doubts to life beyond my trip: Am I using the time and opportunities I have to the best of my ability? Am I working in the right ways to reach my potential? What am I doing to become who I want to be? Who do I want to be?
Then came the daunting task of writing a blog post for the Duke Gap Year Program. How would I summarize all the personal growth I’d undergone when I didn’t feel that any truly existed? Why hadn’t my identity magically become unrecognizably brand new and shiny? After many contrived drafts, I finally landed on a phony feeling narrative of maintaining a positive mindset even when baboons stole my breakfast (just one example of the many exciting new stories aforementioned). Still, I let the piece marinate in a Google Doc, naively hoping time would help it feel more authentic.
Time did not bring authenticity. Revisiting my draft after months only made its message feel more fabricated. I was falsely claiming to have suddenly discovered the concept of looking on the bright side, a skill that in reality I’d already practiced regularly. What time did bring was a new perspective about the hopes and dreams I had associated with my trip. Why was I looking to come out of the experience a polished and complete version of myself? Why was I searching for consummate answers to questions that I should spend my whole life answering? Identity, I began to realize, isn’t a fixed objective to be achieved in one fell swoop. Sometimes an ongoing draft is better than a final product.
With this new perspective, I was grateful that I didn’t return from my backpacking trip with permanent opinions about myself and the world around me. Rather, I returned with an appreciation for being driven to grow and change simply by the fact that I don’t know exactly who I am.
