If there’s one thing I would say
about travelling alone, it’s that it makes you exceptionally trusting. Trusting
and good at carrying things. Not so good at carrying things though, that I
never have to turn my back on my possessions. I ditch them in vacant seats and
tables at coffee shops and on trains and planes because I refuse to let suspicion
dominate my thinking and I'm not going to try and fit everything into a toilet
cubicle or carry my bags whilst I'm also trying to carry trays of food.
Sometimes I ask people to watch them and sometimes I don’t. Mostly I don’t
because I think it’s probably a given that in that situation someone would
probably notice it wasn't me rifling through my belongings. Also because the
places I tend to do this, like trains and airports and planes, aren't places
with easy escape routes; theft is quite unlikely really.
I'm taking up an obnoxious amount of space in this café really, but
then I am about to take up a very (too) small amount of room for the next 10
hours, so it’s probably okay.
I've been thinking a lot lately about moving, and not having any
friends in the place you move to. I'm thinking about it especially today and
right now because I always think that’s the weirdest thing about travelling
alone: how little I speak out loud whilst I do it. I probably won’t have a
proper face-to-face conversation with anyone for the next 28 hours. I kind of
hope I don’t. The fear of someone trying to engage me on a 10 hour flight when
I just came to read, eat and sleep is very present and real. I really think I'd
be okay, at least I’d get used to it. I always feel guilty about how little
time I spend reading and writing. That might be a hangover from academic life
but those are also the things I love more than anything. They’re at the root of
everything I want to achieve and they deserve more time. Rather, they need
more time. I could cook myself good
meals and read loads and write more and live for myself not some perceived need
of human interaction. That is not to say I don’t love the people I surround
myself with now, more that I have got used to the fact most of them are very
far away. Sometimes in the pursuit of having an immediate social circle, I have
chosen very badly.
In the end I suppose the best you
can hope for is that you find the peace you need to be able to see other people
happy, even when you've all but forgotten it, and not begrudge them their joy.
In a late night conversation with my best friend she said she hoped I found the
happiness and the love that she had, and I said not to worry, that I would
choose it for her over myself every time, and I was fine without it. It’s not
because she isn't robust enough to cope without it, goodness knows she has
waited long enough and endured enough. It’s because I find it much easier to
grasp the actual impact of my own pain much easier than I could imagine it in
other people. I would be devastated if she listed the many ways in which I had
been hurt as her own and (as she is) I would be very angry that the world had
conspired like that. Seeing it through my own eyes though, it all feels very
mundane and very ordinary, not insurmountable or even particularly unfair.
‘Rather you than me’ works for the good things as well because I can be more
patient for myself than I can for others and more sure that it is coming, no
matter how slowly.
Not everyone will take this approach and I appreciate that, you
certainly can’t apply it to everyone. But I would say that we should all be
aware than in place of this peace, is a resentment and jealousy and overall
bitterness that can make you do and say very ugly things. All that and you
certainly won’t be any happier any sooner.
Well you know you can scrap that, because in classic form, I've assimilated myself into a group of women doing the same journey as me. Thank
you to the worldwide sisterhood for bringing such interesting and diverse women
into my life every time I step out of the door. Thank you to these individual
women for making me feel so worthy of your affection and praise on the daily.
You know I'm so terrible for
telling other people how much other people have changed my life and how many
thanks they deserve from me. Start telling them yourself you dreadful idiot.
Share the love you have. Tell them as soon as you can, face to face.
Not as much silence as I have planned on this journey but that’s okay
too. There’s still another long (long) haul flight to go and plenty of time for
silence in the rest of your life. Plus you’re still working now aren't you, you
absolute nightmare. Freelancers don’t take holidays and writers certainly don’t
take breaks. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not but my mind is
constantly thinking about what I can write next and one day it might not be so
go with it whilst you've got it I suppose.
Honestly that little boy being pushed in a trolley by his dad in the
airport may have made my day. What day is it? Can it have made my day? It’s 6 am at home. 2.30 pm here. 5.30 pm there. Get me to my destination and get me a
shower and a change of clothes and then some sleep.
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