Keep Walking On

So before I even started to write about what happened during my 9-month journey in Australia, I decided to first write about what is happening after it – the “WHAT NOW?”.

There are so many thoughts in my head every day since I came back from my trip. I’d say it’s a really sad thing to know the journey is now over – and it feels worse when I know that many other travellers I met on the road are also ending their journey soon, or have recently gone back to their home countries. It feels like it’s officially over. But at the same time, well.. positive thinking, I’m not alone.

We all have to experience this. To feel sad after having so much fun out there is pretty normal. It takes time to settle in. But travelling is not just about having fun. When I ask myself again: “Why do you travel?”, “Have you learned anything from this?”, “Have you become a better person now?”, “Are you doing or seeing things differently now?”… all these questions have left me wondering and wandering…

Of course I never expect that I will find myself, know what I want, figure out meanings of life, etc, etc.. through just 9 months of travelling in one country – it’s not that easy and it shouldn’t be. But when I know I don’t have answers to my questions, or I have more questions than answers than before, it just feels like shit.. and I spent 1 or 2 months feeling like shit, drowning in negativity.

But now, once again, positive thinking – what could be worse than not having questions in life, that you don’t question yourself every now and then and try to figure out the answers? What’s the meaning of being if you stop wanting to know more and to be better?

Going back home after travelling, I have been feeling miserable, unsettled and lost because I don’t feel I belong here anymore. This place I call home but I don’t want to be here. The idea of going back to my former life, doing the same old shits, being my old self frustrates and saddens me. I mean, after all these travels, after knowing more about who I am and what I want, am I now just going back to square one as if nothing happened or changed? Is that it? At some point I even started to question and think that travelling actually fucked me up more than anything else…

But as time goes by, I eventually have my thoughts more distilled and settled. However, it’s not like everything becomes crystal clear – quite the contrary, things always seem contradictory and paradoxical. So I think it’s true that “the more you know, the more you know you don’t know.” I have no doubt that I’ve known more about myself, about life; but at the same time, I’m having more doubts about myself and life than ever before.

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ACCEPT WHO YOU REALLY ARE
To deal with the aftermath of travelling, I think we all have to accept that for us, nothing can ever be the same; but the objective circumstances back home, most likely, are still the same and they’re not going to change in the near future. You feel more out of place because you find it hard to relate, hard to explain to people how you feel.

People may think that if you want to fit in again, you’ve got to adjust yourself to the real world. Some people said to me “Welcome back to the real world!” as if travelling is just a fantasy world that is not real, like I was living in a dream rather that living my dream.

If anyone ever makes you feel like you’re a pathetic outsider of the “real world”, screw them! I’m proud to say it out loud that I’m happy to have known and seen more in this whole wide world, and I’m not going to adjust myself to the banality of your “real world theory”.

But you have to accept that they could never understand you, to be fair, because there were moments during my journey that I felt like a total stranger to myself – because I saw sides of me that I didn’t know existed. I think it’s not because I changed to a different person, it’s just the parts of me that have been hidden or suppressed or I didn’t pay attention to before, were finally revealed and exposed.

It can be because you’ve got to talk to yourself and listen to your heart more when you’re travelling alone, or you met people who brought out something inside of you that were left untouched before. These hidden sides can be good or bad. But no matter what they are, you’ve known yourself better. Travel doesn’t change me, it reveals me. I know more about myself and I feel comfortable and confident in being and showing what I really am.

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BE PATIENT AND DO NOT GIVE IN TOO SOON
However, given the circumstances that you’re in now, not to mention the very real need to feed yourself and pick back up your responsibilities, you may find yourself less adventurous, less ambitious, less fearless, less motivated than you were when you’re on the road.

Once you’re back to the normal routine surrounded by normal people, you started to feel the norms of the society slapping on your face, pressing you to wake up from your dreams. The “reality” may force you to cave in and surrender, putting the shackles back on and going back to the mundane daily life you once ran away from.

Once again, what saddens me most is staying the same after all these travels. Deep in my heart, I still want to recklessly go into the unknown, look for new possibilities in life. But because of my fears, because of the higher cost and risks that come with increasing age, I always hear a voice in my head telling me that my clock is ticking and I don’t have much time to waste… when people around me are all getting married, having children, with a well-paid and secure job.

I’m still bound by the society’s norms and ideals even though I know better than many other people that I don’t need to conform to it. I’m afraid to see that one day I might just give in, but with my mind and my heart always be in somewhere else…

But every time when I start to drown myself in all these negative thoughts, I would say to myself, maybe how this journey has influenced me and in what way it is going to shape me – it takes time for me to find out. So it’s ok if I don’t know it now, it’s ok if I feel shattered now, as long as I know I’m a more complete person than before. And I have to be patient to see what’s coming next and not to jump into conclusion that soon.

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MOVE ON
I hate goodbyes. I hate to accept that the stories were over once I left that room; stepped on that train; got on that flight; watched that car drive away and disappear from my sight; and after all the hugs and goodbyes that were always too short… I’m never good at letting go. But this journey has taught me the art of moving on.

9 months in Australia – I knew it from the beginning that I had to keep moving if I wanted to explore more places in this big country, and so I wouldn’t stay in one place for more than 2 months. Sometimes I tried not to get too close to people, so that I wouldn’t be too sad when it came to the goodbyes. But if you try to be distant, you’re not living in the moment.

“Travelling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers”. The more you trust, the more vulnerable you become. But just because you know you will not see each other again doesn’t mean that you don’t have to treat people with true sincerity. And the more you travel, the more people you meet, you will soon learn to tell who are looking for friends, and who are looking for fun.

You moved on wiser, you learned to feel who are trustworthy, and you learned the hard way to walk away from people who are only there for you when it suits them. Most of the people I met on the road were just passersby. But I was lucky enough to have met a few people who gave me the feeling that we’ve known each other forever. Even if we’re from different countries, or we’re not speaking our first languages, I still felt that I had better communication and connection with them than with people I’ve known for years back home.

When you travel, you meet like-minded people because you’re doing, chasing, and believing in the same things; you may even have so many things or stories in common that it almost seems magical. What we can do is we treasure the time together, we move on, and we hope for the best that we will meet again somewhere in this big big world – it sounds so remote and impossible, but what I believe is that, nothing is hard if you want it enough.

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YOU HAVE TO DO THINGS
It’s the same when it comes to facing the transition from traveling to going back home. The art of moving on is to adapt to changes, hope for the best, and at the same time work on and prepare for the next step to take. You can always find ways to beat the odds, unless you’re not even trying.

I spent 1 or 2 months doing nothing, mourning over the end of my journey, grieving for the fact that I was already home. I even went on 2 spontaneous trips to Vietnam and Spain because I refused to accept the fact that I had to go home. But after that, when I was nearly broke after the trips, I knew that I couldn’t escape from problems, just sitting there and imagining how nice it would be to travel again. I have to work on it. I have to do things.

If you don’t do anything and stop right there, how could you possibly move on? Moving on is not like erasing and forgetting people/things and going on with your life as if nothing happened. It’s about keeping the memories in your heart but don’t let the nostalgia hold you back. If there is something you truly want to hold on to, you have to do things to get it. Take the next step and create new memories.

Moving on, and doing things in order to move on – these are the first and biggest lessons I’ve learned from my journey. And I tell myself that if I can’t move on now, the time spent and all the things I did in my travel will all be in vain.

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What do you feel after you’re back from a long journey and how do you deal with it?