twentyninefeelingokay-blog

[twentyninefeelingokay-blog]

Belgium. February. 2019

I planned on making this whole blog writing thing a regular event this year....and that hasn't quite happened. It's not like I've got nothing to write about, but doing it takes so so much energy out of me because my plan is to be as open and honest as possible, and that pals, is knackering! So what's been going on? Whats the hot goss? what's the 411? (get used to the Mean Girls quotes, that film shaped my university years, and has been the foundation of many of my friendships) WELL, I'm currently in Belgium. Say whatttt. Not entirely sure how this happened to be honest, at the end of last year I was fully intending to move to London and settle, get a base, join a choir, go to the gym regularly, have a routine like a normal person. But I'm not very good at 'settling', I'll stay somewhere a bit and then I'll hear the seductive lure of an adventure to be had, it's becoming an obsession, to always be somewhere else. Friends and family don't even get sad about me leaving because it's an ingrained part of me now, that I don't think I'll ever shake off. Is that a bad thing? I don't think so, but then sometimes I have my doubts. "Travel is Good for the Soul" is one of those 'inspirational' quotes you always see on your Social Media feed, plastered in curly italics over a lame stock image of an aeroplane wing in the sky. And I wholeheartedly agree, but the people who make these bloody things don't talk about the other side of travel, the bit where you get addicted and end up floating around the world feeling like you don't quite fit anywhere. Oh woe is me, I'm aware that this is a very First World problem, I know how lucky I am to be able to incorporate travel in to my work, or that I have a lifestyle which means I can just bugger off to South East Asia for 3 months to 'find myself' (spoiler: I was right there the whole time) and I appreciate every opportunity to experience different cultures. I have no doubt that I'm a better person than my pre-travel self because of the people I've met, the things I've learnt and the ridiculous experiences I've had. I'm SO much more accepting, chilled and open now. But I'm also constantly yearning. When I was younger and a lot more naive, I assumed that travelling would be the answer to all my problems, that I'd just feel better about everything if I was in a different place with different people who didn't know me that well. I now realise (mainly thanks to therapy) that I had very low self worth, I really really didn't like myself for most of my formative years- maybe I'll go in to the contributing factors at a later stage when I feel a bit braver, baby steps. I had these vivid images in my mind of life just being that little bit better elsewhere, and if I'm quite honest I don't remember a time when I didn't feel like that. We weren't a well off family growing up, but my parents always made sure that we had at least one holiday a year, if only to Cornwall to go camping, and I cherished those times. Everything's always better when you're on holiday. It's balmier, fuzzier around the edges. And when it came time to leave that lovely, lovely bubble I would be distraught beyond belief, crying for the entire car journey home, locking myself in my room under a blanket of despair at why the world was so unfair. Why couldn't myself and all my new holiday friends live on that campsite in Newquay forever? Why did I have to live in the Midlands with my shit self worth and inability to fit in? And the more I travelled, the more I felt that way, the less desire I felt to go home, the addiction was rife in me. But here's an eye opener, travel won't fix everything, sure it'll broaden your mind with incredible encounters, it'll teach you more empathy and compassion than you've ever experienced, it'll give you connections with people like you've never had, however, it will not erase all of your problems. You can't just turn your back on them and yourself,  and expect them to go away because you're on a deserted island in Cambodia (as stunning as that is). For example, I went travelling for 3 months last year to get away from the fact that my Grandma (my best friend) had recently died, I was stuck in the middle of a messy divorce between my parents, I had just ended a 10 year relationship, and I was feeling very lost. My plan was to leave it all behind and come back refreshed, ready to start all over again. That didn't quite happen...I'd met someone just before I went away and we'd fallen in (what we thought was) passionate, hold nothing back love very, very quickly. We agreed that I would go off on my adventures and have my time of being young, free and single. That also didn't happen...on my fourth day in Thailand, I fell off a moped, fractured my wrist in three places and had to have surgery. Cue me spending 5 days in a Thai hospital as well as 6 weeks in a cast with only one working arm and a ridiculous amount of deep cuts all over my body. He became my life jacket, my home comfort. My plan to spend no time on my phone communicating with people went straight out the window and I ended speaking to him all day every day, we'd wait for each other to wake up just to get that message. I couldn't continue my day without hearing from him, he the same, I can only just admit it now, but we became dependant on each other. Don't get me wrong though, I still managed to have an awesome time and I look back on that time to remind myself how bad ass I can be. I could have jacked it all in and gone home, I didn't! If I hadn't have stayed I wouldn't have banging travel stories about the time our tour bus slid half way down a muddy mountain in the pouring rain, or the time I woke up in my hostel bed to find a colony of ants eating my wounds, or memories of beautiful sunsets over temples, beaches and cities, singing karaoke in local bars, making lifetime friends, more importantly I wouldn't have realised how strong I am.