For the Kid Who Dreamed of Faraway Places
I knew I needed healing before I stepped foot on the plane. I didn’t know what kind, or how it would come but something in me had been aching. Not in a loud, dramatic way. More like a quiet longing that had been with me since childhood. The kind that whispers, “there’s something out there for you.”
The Aleutian Islands answered that whisper.
I’m not from the region. I don’t have family ties to the communities or land. But the moment I arrived; it felt like the place had been waiting for me just the same. The fog, the wind, the endless water it was like stepping into a dream I used to have as a kid. I used to stare at maps and imagine the edge of the world. What it looked like. What it felt like. This was it.
Being in nature has always been my medicine, but this trip was something deeper. The Aleutians didn’t just offer me beauty they offered me stillness. They quieted the noise in my head and made space for my younger self, the part of me that once felt out of place, always chasing something bigger. Out there, I didn’t feel like I had to chase anything. I just had to be.
I met elders. I had moments of silence that felt like prayer. I stood at the edge of cliffs and felt the kind of peace that doesn’t need words. That inner child, the one who dreamed of faraway places finally felt seen. Felt safe. Felt… home, somehow.
Healing isn’t always about fixing something. Sometimes, it’s about remembering who you were before the world told you to be someone else. And out there, on islands I had only ever imagined, I remembered.
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