Losing someone you love alters the way you view everything. Words feel hollowed. Time becomes warped. And the absence of loss begins to look like a privilege. Familiar landscapes become unfamiliar, while distant horizons begin to carry a different kind of meaning. As an early emerging therapist learning to accompany others through their own experiences of grief, uncertainty, and change, I found myself making a quiet promise over this last half year: to preserve my own sense of perspective as best I could by continuing to seek out new ones—no matter how far, or unexpectedly close, they might be found.

That being said, there was something unexpectedly humbling about finding myself breathless on a mountain and uncharted waters in my home country.