I picked up my new passport today.
It’s so beautiful: it’s so crisp and new and clean, and it lacks all the random, faded security stickers on the back and the rough, dirty corners of my old one. And, best of all, it has twice as many pages, because apparently it only takes me four years to fill up a standard size book.
I got my last passport right before I left Austin for a slow crawl to Myanmar. First I went to Tampa to see friends, and spent a few days in Chicago before my flight, and spent a night each in Shanghai and Bangkok before finally making it to Yangon. And when I got there, I wasn’t quite sure if I even remembered how to travel, as I hadn’t left the country in over a year.
Because you see, my old passport marked the end of a long, long recovery from a break-up. One where, on top of steeling myself against the crushing loneliness, I also had to build back my self-worth and body image, both of which were basically non-existent that year.
But I did, slowly, and then one day I was at the post office finally replacing my passport that had been stolen in Miami right before Basel 2017.
And now it’s full.
And in those four years that I spent filling it, I became a completely different person.
And look, it’s getting late, and I have to leave soon to catch a long overland bus from here to Sarajevo. This isn’t the time to reminisce about the person I used to be and who I am now.
But I will say that I’m excited to find out who this passport will make me.
–M