The Route to Finding Myself

Have you ever been in a place where you felt like you don’t belong? Like that time when you accidentally went to the foreign movie without subtitles and didn’t understand a word? Or the time when you missed a dress-code and came into the black-tie event with sneakers? Guess what, I found myself reliving that feeling in a very strange place – in the middle of a cave tunnel (in Moravian Karst, Czech Republic), deciding to dive or not to dive under water .

That day I had an interesting walking-tour with experienced speleologists, they told me and my travel fellows a lot of stories about caves: their types, archeological and cultural importance, cave-inhabiting animals... Later we were asked to divide into three groups and choose which route we want to explore – another walking-tour, path that requires some climbing or the most difficult one that not only requires climbing but also has cold water in it. I wasn‘t thinking twice – after I heard so much about the caves I wanted to experience the most that I could, and I thought to myself – it shouldn’t be that difficult, right?

Guess what - when I found myself breast-high into freezing water, wearing a serious-looking helmet that was supposed to shield my head when crawling in narrow tunnels and staring at the wall under which our instructor had just dived - another though came to my head: I shouldn’t be here, I should be taking leisure trip and sunbathing next to pool and leaving all this cave-related-stuff for professionals. But that was my fright speaking. A moment later I reminded myself that I want to make the most of my trip and if that requires diving in 5 degrees of Celsius water in a cave, I will do it without any hesitation.

As I am now telling to everyone - the moment I dived out in other side of the wall was like to be born again – I saw world like for the first time, adrenaline was rushing through my veins, I was met by encouraging shouts of others and I felt almost spiritual – like I was purified from my fears and all the negative emotions were left behind me. I took me a moment to even notice that after diving under water we found ourselves outside of the cave and our route has ended.

I will never forget that day, which taught me that you don‘t always feel like you belong or that you are able to do something brave, but if you allow yourself to look at everything with different perspective, you might experience amazing things!