I started writing as an outlet when I was in high school. I remember the great sense of relief, but also the weight that it carried. The feeling that baring my soul on a blank piece of paper gave me has never been rivaled. To this day it still energizes and terrifies me.

Little Old Wise One began as a travel blog when I was a wee 23 year old lass traveling the coast of Ireland. It was a solo trip, a soul searching trip, and a journey of self-discovery that changed my life. Something I loved while traveling alone was the amount of time I had to reflect and write. It wasn’t until years later that I discovered the term Highly Sensitive Person (or HSP), and came to realize just how much I identify with this descriptor.

I also happen to be a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and am beginning to explore how the HSP element of my personality coupled with early childhood trauma have had a pretty significant impact on my life. The purpose here is not to “play the violins” so-to-speak, but rather to explore and unpack these heavy topics in a loving and honest way, free from fear of judgement, in an effort to start a conversation for those who both identify as an HSP and have experienced trauma.

“All journeys have secret destinations
of which the traveler is unaware.” – Martin Buber

“Adventure is a path. Real adventure – self-determined, self-motivated, often risky – forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world. The world the way it is, not the way you imagine it. Your body will collide with the earth and you will bear witness. In this way you will be compelled to grapple with the limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty of humankind – and perhaps realize that you yourself are capable of both. This will change you. Nothing will ever again be black-and-white.” – Mark Jenkins

“The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.” –Samuel Johnson

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain

“Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.” – Miriam Beard