I first started my personal blog as a way to document my adventures and as a way of sharing my life with friends and family back home. I meant to keep it light and silly and comical.
But life hasn’t been light and silly and comical, like it was in those early days. There are moments, sure, and it still is an incredible adventure; but as I was warned from the get-go, when you travel the world you will never truly find an escape, rather, the problems from before will travel with you. Perhaps they will manifest themselves in different ways, and perhaps you will have different perspectives on how to approach them, but you are still you, no matter where you sleep at night.
You may still get lonely and anxious. Home may never have seemed so far away, even though you’re still not quite sure what “home” even is.
You may still get overwhelmed. The incessant pings and texts and snaps and notifications buzzing you into insanity, constantly inundating you with places you should be and things you should be doing and people you should be talking to until you give up and mute everything, hoping the silence will make you invisible.
You may still have falling outs with people you considered friends. This may hurt more because you may have even considered them family.
You may still have health issues. Nights of fevers and chills and swells and unidentifiable bites. Except you’ll be alone with an inability to get treatment or communicate what is wrong and all you really want is someone who understands.
You may still have days when you are frustrated with your job or your boss or your coworkers. When you just need “a day off” even though life is supposed to be like one giant vacation, or at least that’s what Instagram leads you to believe.
You may still struggle with your body image. The lack of consistency in your routine and in your access to equipment along with an erratic eating schedule leaving you feeling sluggish and bloated with no real way of “getting back into a groove.”
You may still experience heartache. Gut wrenching conversations at midnight in the rain, a foreign look on a familiar face, and yours wet with tears.
You may, as the case may be, experience all of these things, all at once, in a city you’re longing to explore and love, but really you can’t get out of bed and it’s been days since you saw another human or went to an event or laughed carelessly.
You may experience unfathomable guilt for not appreciating this opportunity you’ve been gifted every last ounce that it deserves. You are so lucky, so why can’t you just get up and LIVE.
But it’s raining again in Kyoto. I guess I’ll just stay in bed.
