octavialc
Navigating the city like a true Parisian
Having grown up as the child of two black immigrants in white suburban North Carolina, I have always struggled with belonging. My family...
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LIBERATED TRAVELS
Inspiring You To Travel The Way YOU Want To
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ABOUT ME
The Skinny
In all honesty, I started this travel blog because of a very impactful argument that I had with my mother. While on the vacation of a lifetime in France, I had managed to bring along the unwelcome baggage of self-consciousness, insecurity, and unreasonable perfectionism; tainting the beginning of the trip for both of us.
I learned a lot from the choice words my mother shared with me during our argument; she prompted me to be myself authentically and unapologetically. The rest of our trip was wonderful because I was now liberated from the longstanding pressures that I had placed upon myself.
After reading "Making American Places: Civic Engagement Rightly Understood" I noticed a multitude of connections between author Ted V. McAllister's writing and my personal essay: the overarching theme being Liberation Through Authenticity.
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octavialc
Train ride reflections
After the argument I had with my mother, I took some time to really reflect on everything she had said. As we rode the train from Paris...
octavialc
Making the most of your time in Lyon
My arrival in the Lyon felt like waking from a deep hibernation. I realized that for so long I had changed myself for others in pursuit...
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According to McAllister, "Loyalty and attachment to 'America' requires, in most cases, complex and almost invisible cords of affections to particular people, local institutions, and to very particular places”(p. 229).
Just like the complexities beneath this attachment and loyalty that McAllister describes, I found a new level of happiness and self confidence through reflection and reconnection with my beliefs and values.
When I let go of my insecurities of belonging and realized the importance and ease of just being myself, I was able to travel the rest of France and the rest of my life in a truly liberated fashion.
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