Katie Lemon
When my partner left our life abroad for law school in the Midwest, I followed him and told myself it was all part of a bigger plan.
We’d first met as two single Americans living in Guatemala, and jumped headfirst into the kind of whirlwind romance that feels almost mythic when you’ve built your life around solo travel.
We fell in love and traveled across five continents together for a year and a half. I couldn’t believe my luck — for the first time, I had someone to share the dream with.
He’d made the decision to go back to school just days into our relationship, long before we knew what we’d become. So when it was finally time for him to leave, I ignored my gut feelings and convinced myself I ought to try something new, too.
I was in my late 20s, and many of my friends were starting to settle down. I figured my resistance to that kind of life was probably just the same sort of fear that I used to have about traveling.
Maybe, like travel, building a life in the Midwest was something I’d grow into if I just gave it a real shot.
I threw myself into creating a life that wasn’t mine
Katie Lemon
When we first moved to St. Louis in 2023, I treated it like another adventure. I joined a gym, went on Bumble BFF dates, and even briefly played on a local rugby team, but nothing really landed.
I found myself clinging to long-distance friendships and far-off travel plans like a life raft, hoping they’d keep me afloat.
Meanwhile, my partner was immersed in the demanding, all-consuming world of law school. He worked hard to make time for us, but I usually felt more like a moon in his orbit than someone charting her own path.
Still, I kept pushing. After a year of feeling restless and lost, I booked a solo trip to Costa Rica.
Katie Lemon
I thought a month abroad by myself could be the middle ground, a way to travel while staying tethered to my partner.
The beaches were golden, the jungle lush — but I couldn’t feel any of it. The trip that was supposed to help heal me didn’t. Travel, the one thing that had always made me feel alive, now left me numb.
I started wondering if I’d outgrown solo travel. Maybe I really needed to double down on staying in one place and committing to building something steady with someone else.
Looking back, I realize I had it backward.
It wasn’t travel I’d outgrown — it was a life that didn’t fit
Katie Lemon
Over the next year, the cracks widened. The balance of our relationship rested precariously on the idea that his dreams and goals were more important than mine.
He was encouraging of my travel, but only up to a point: We both knew long-term long-distance wasn’t an option for us. Eventually, we had to face the truth that we were chasing different futures, and there was no map that led to both.
After we broke up, something in me snapped back into place. For the first time in years, I could go anywhere I wanted. I didn’t have to contort my dreams to fit into someone else’s five-year plan.
Within weeks, I sold my share of our furniture and boarded a one-way flight to New Zealand. I bought a camper van and began writing and exploring again — this time on my own terms.
Immediately, I began to feel like myself again. I learned that you can’t box up your values and only take them out on vacation.
After years of traveling alone, I had started to feel adrift, and meeting my ex felt like finding a lighthouse on an island. I thought I could anchor myself to him and that love would be enough to build a home.
However, when you build a future on someone else’s dreams, you risk forgetting your own.
These days, I’m working to become my own lighthouse instead of searching for someone else’s. I want to be self-lit and rooted in what I need to live a meaningful life.
And if love comes again — which I hope it does — I want it to be drawn to that light, not to a shadow I’ve cast to fit someone else’s future.
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