This past week I have really been struggling with the feeling of loneliness. I had never felt true loneliness at this intensity like that before. It was strange for me to come to terms with it because in my head I wasn’t alone. I live with 5 other people, my best friend that I met here in NZ lived right next door, I talked to my mom almost everyday, and I facetimed my boyfriend sometimes more than once a day. Somehow, I still felt lonely. It was weird for me to come to terms with. I started reaching out to a lot of friends from back home, but our conversations seemed like they never got farther than a couple of text messages back and forth. I absolutely hated it. I felt like people say that they miss me but don’t put in the effort to show it. I needed to get out of my rut. I have now 5 weeks left here and I couldn’t take feeling like this any longer. I needed to get away and that’s exactly what I did. I hopped in a car with some friends from my program and took a weekend trip to Wanaka. We hiked to one of the most iconic views New Zealand has to offer. The way up was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do, but I’m not exaggerating when I say it was 1000% worth it. Somehow along the way I gained a new appreciation for New Zealand. Not that I didn’t appreciate it before, but after the rough week I had, something had changed. I felt empowered. I might have felt alone, but even when I was alone, I was able to accomplish one of the greatest things in my life. Being alone is okay. I was embracing solitary and I liked it. The mind is powerful and it’s not easy to change your mindset, but I believe nature was able to do it. Through the hard times that I’ve had here and believing that I didn’t deserve to be here, I finally started to believe that I do this weekend. For the longest time I’ve felt like I don’t have a purpose here, since all I’ve ever known was intense and structure schedules and always belonging to a team. However, after this weekend I think I might have found a purpose. A purpose that for once, only affects me. I realized that I am deserving, I am strong, I am not alone, and I can do this. I’ve always said those things, but this time I honestly believed it. I felt this weekend taught me more than I would ever be able to learn in a classroom.