When I flew home in October I was anxious; maybe I knew that an emotional shitstorm was impending, maybe I was just worried about the loss of an adventure. It doesn't really matter which way it was - it simply wasn't comfortable. It wasn't good for me.
So I left and looking back I can objectively say I was running away as much as I was running towards. I was running towards the life I'd created over the past two years; fluid, full of movement, change. I was running away from hurt, lies and someone who seemed to have a hold over me they simply didn't deserve.
It's been a weird trip. Oddly balanced by extraordinary wonder and then just life. Life has interrupted this trip. It has grabbed me, shaken me and forced perspective down my throat.
The dramas that unfurled between someone I really cared about when I was home really felt like the end of the world, or at least that world that I'd reserved and dug out of my imagination. Sometimes it's the loss of things that didn't exist yet that hurt the most; the loss of possibility. Then there's the knowing - the knowing that they will always be the person that made you feel like that. But that is just a memory now, isn't it?
I find myself wondering what I'm scared of. Is it some kind of lingering hurt that's echoing throughout me or is it the acute awareness of what that person is capable of. Is is just knowing this is a situation I have no control over.
Just north of Chiang Rai my friend and I were returning from a border run at the Burmese border on a motorbike when we passed through a sleepy village. Everyone had poured onto the footpaths and traffic was slow; the cars, motorbikes and bystanders were all holding their breath.
As we passed through the cordoned off scene, it became obvious that only minutes before there had been a motorcycle crash. A man lay still, his head surrounded by blood and his eyes facing towards me. It was the first time I'd seen someone dead like that, but the most chilling part was the fact no one was helping him. He was so dead there was no urgency in tending to him. Nothing could be done.
I thought about his family, did he have children? A wife? How would they be told? I felt sick, what had happened back home seemed to small in comparison, so permeable.
As I get older I'm trying to let go of a lot of things simply because they're heavy.
But also because they're not relevant anymore.
They don't exist anymore.
They're just memories; anchors resting on the seabed from ships that sailed away many years ago.
I'm home in exactly one month.
I used to believe that traveling to far- away and exotic places would change me the most. That the culture shock, the unfamiliarity, the difference would force me to evolve, but now I've realised going home seems to change me the most.
That same familiar anxiety returned and I'm going to try to let go.
So I left and looking back I can objectively say I was running away as much as I was running towards. I was running towards the life I'd created over the past two years; fluid, full of movement, change. I was running away from hurt, lies and someone who seemed to have a hold over me they simply didn't deserve.
It's been a weird trip. Oddly balanced by extraordinary wonder and then just life. Life has interrupted this trip. It has grabbed me, shaken me and forced perspective down my throat.
The dramas that unfurled between someone I really cared about when I was home really felt like the end of the world, or at least that world that I'd reserved and dug out of my imagination. Sometimes it's the loss of things that didn't exist yet that hurt the most; the loss of possibility. Then there's the knowing - the knowing that they will always be the person that made you feel like that. But that is just a memory now, isn't it?
I find myself wondering what I'm scared of. Is it some kind of lingering hurt that's echoing throughout me or is it the acute awareness of what that person is capable of. Is is just knowing this is a situation I have no control over.
Just north of Chiang Rai my friend and I were returning from a border run at the Burmese border on a motorbike when we passed through a sleepy village. Everyone had poured onto the footpaths and traffic was slow; the cars, motorbikes and bystanders were all holding their breath.
As we passed through the cordoned off scene, it became obvious that only minutes before there had been a motorcycle crash. A man lay still, his head surrounded by blood and his eyes facing towards me. It was the first time I'd seen someone dead like that, but the most chilling part was the fact no one was helping him. He was so dead there was no urgency in tending to him. Nothing could be done.
I thought about his family, did he have children? A wife? How would they be told? I felt sick, what had happened back home seemed to small in comparison, so permeable.
As I get older I'm trying to let go of a lot of things simply because they're heavy.
But also because they're not relevant anymore.
They don't exist anymore.
They're just memories; anchors resting on the seabed from ships that sailed away many years ago.
I'm home in exactly one month.
I used to believe that traveling to far- away and exotic places would change me the most. That the culture shock, the unfamiliarity, the difference would force me to evolve, but now I've realised going home seems to change me the most.
That same familiar anxiety returned and I'm going to try to let go.
2 comments:
Your writing always resonates with me, and this post was particularly powerful. Thank you for sharing.
It's so interesting that we expect traveling to change us...when coming home is actually what can be more of a changer. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I hope that you'll find peace within and outside of yourself.
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