Chasing Lights ~ Lit Up, Twice

Some trips stay with you because of the places you saw. Some stay because of the people you traveled with, the people you met, the food you ate, the photos you clicked, or the stories you came back with.

And then there are trips that feel like they quietly rearranged something inside you.

My trip to Norway and Amsterdam was one of those.

On paper, it sounds like a very fancy-ass instagramy itinerary (believe me, it was much more than that ~ the views were immaculate). Snow, fjords, canals, bicycles, cafés, pretty streets, cold air, and all the usual suspects. But when I think back to that trip, two moments stand taller than everything else.

One was standing under the Northern Lights in Norway. The other was tripping on shrooms in Amsterdam.

From witnessing nature’s greatest light show to slowly feeling myself dissolve into the landscape around me, becoming part of the stillness, the air, the whole surrounding world. Quite the range, I guess.

But somewhere between those two experiences, I realised that I was chasing the same thing both times.

Light.

In Norway, it was literal. Green waves moving across the sky like the universe had decided to paint in real time. It felt unreal, but not in a loud way. More like the world had lowered its voice and said, “Look up.”

There are some things you cannot fully capture. You can take a hundred photos, record videos, try to explain it later, but the moment still refuses to fit inside anything. The Northern Lights were like that.

They made me feel very small, but not in a scary way. Small in a freeing way.

Like maybe not everything needs to be controlled. Maybe not everything needs to be understood. Maybe sometimes, just witnessing something is enough.

Amsterdam lit me up differently.

There was no sky opening up. No snow. No chase. No waiting in the cold hoping nature decides to show up.

This time, the lights were internal.

The trip was not about seeing something outside me. It was about seeing the inside of my own head with the brightness turned all the way up. Thoughts became louder. Feelings became funnier. Small things became profound for absolutely no reason, because apparently the human brain is both a temple and a poorly managed group chat.

But beyond the humour of it, there was something strangely honest about the experience.

It made me notice how much we carry without realising it. How many thoughts keep running in the background. How much of life we spend trying to appear composed, certain, sorted, and normal.

And then suddenly, for a few hours, the usual filters loosened.

Things felt softer. Stranger. More connected. More alive.

Not perfect. Not magical in the movie sense. Just different enough to make me question the usual version of reality I walk around with every day

That is what tied Norway and Amsterdam together for me. Both experiences asked me to surrender.

In Norway, I had to surrender to nature. To timing. To the sky. To the fact that the lights may or may not appear, and all I could do was stand there and wait.

In Amsterdam, I had to surrender to my mind. To the weirdness. To the thoughts. To the uncomfortable and beautiful feeling of not being fully in control.

And honestly, maybe that is what travel does at its best.

It removes you from the systems you have built around yourself. Your calendar, your routines, your usual roads, your familiar version of who you are. It places you somewhere new and says, “Now let’s see what is still you when everything familiar is gone.”

In Norway, I looked up and felt wonder. In Amsterdam, I looked inward and felt curiosity.

Both were lights.

One lit up the sky. One lit up parts of me I do not usually stop to look at.

And maybe that is why this trip stayed with me. Not only because it was perfect. Not only because every day was cinematic. Not only because every moment had meaning.

But because twice, in very different ways, I felt awake.

Once under the Northern Lights. Once somewhere inside the strange little universe of my own mind.

Lit up, twice :)