Window Seat

I’ve always loved flying. But the first time I truly felt like a traveler, I wasn’t in the sky- I was on a train, leaving everything I had known.

Growing up, I didn’t travel. I wasn’t allowed to. I was the sick child in a poor family, the one people pitied but never invited. My world was a small neighborhood tucked into the edges of Huế, where the roofs were made of straw and the days were measured by when the rice boiled or the rain came. We lived in a suburb no one knew how to find on a map. I walked to school, my feet memorizing every crack in the path like prayer. That was the world I came from- raw, quiet, invisible.

Everything changed when I got a scholarship to one of the best middle schools in the city. I was only a child, but I crossed a river and a threshold that day. For the first time, I rode a bike out of my neighborhood, across the Perfume River, toward something bigger. That ride became a ritual. I watched rows of trees blur beside me, the sun glinting off the handlebars. I discovered buildings with more than one level, streets paved smooth like promise, shop windows reflecting a version of life I never knew existed. It was magical.

For seven years, I took that road like it was my pilgrimage. My classmates came from wealth, from cars and field trips and vacations I could only dream of. But I didn’t envy them. I had my bike. I had my detours through the park, my slow rides across the bridge at sunrise. I was alone, yes - but the city saw me. And in return, I loved it fiercely. That small town, that quiet road, became my world. It held me when home felt unsafe. It gave me beauty when life gave me fear.

And then, almost without warning, I was leaving.

I don’t remember packing. I don’t remember crying. I just remember the train. I remember the way the car swayed as we climbed the Hải Vân Pass, the way the mountain met the ocean and the sky opened wide enough to hold me. I leaned out the window and for the first time, I saw the tail of the train curve like a silver snake through cliffs and clouds. I had seen the ocean before. But not like this. Not from above. Not with the wind in my hair and my heart cracking open under its own weight.

I didn’t know where we were going - not really. I knew the name of the city, but not what it meant. Not what it would take from me. Or give. I was seventeen, and for the first time, I knew two things at once: sorrow, and wonder. My ribs were full of loss, but my eyes were lit with the light of something I couldn’t yet name. Freedom, maybe. Escape. Hope. Or maybe it was just the beginning of becoming.

That train window became a mirror. I looked out and saw the world-and I saw myself, choosing to move forward.

Since then, there have been airplanes, buses, ferries, long drives across deserts and countrysides. Over forty countries, and I am still not done. Some days I was running-from heartbreak, from expectation, from the echo of voices that tried to define me. Other days, I was running toward something- joy, possibility, the version of myself I had lost and wanted to meet again.

But most days, I was just sitting by the window. Watching. Feeling. Learning to stay with myself, even when everything else moved fast.

There is a kind of magic in a window seat. Watching the sun rise above the clouds while the rest of the world still sleeps. Watching the sky blush and burn as the plane slices through time. Below me, lives go on- cars, streets, lovers walking home, mothers waking children. And there I am, suspended. For a brief moment, I’m not in motion or stillness. I just am. And it’s enough.

I’ve cried at takeoff and laughed at landing. I’ve stared at mountain ranges like they were poems. I’ve watched city lights flicker like stars that forgot they were grounded. And every time, the window reminds me: this is your life. This is your view. You chose to see it. You chose to keep going.

The little girl who once rode her bike across the bridge at dawn is still with me. She still stops for flowers. She still finds wonder in straight rows of trees and long roads that lead somewhere new. She still doesn’t know exactly where she’s going. But she’s not afraid anymore.

Flying didn’t just take me places. It brought me home. To myself. Again and again.

And maybe that’s what it means to be a traveler.

Not just to arrive.

But to remember.

To return to the girl who first leaned out the window, heart cracked wide, and whispered:

Let’s go.