journal/

on-going mostly unedited stream of thoughts

Life, observed from a roadtrip

I used to love traveling because I didn’t like where I was. Traveling was a form of escape, and I wanted to escape all the time.

This year, I travelled to Sayulita, Los Angeles and various parts of Southeast Asia, only to find myself desperately missing San Francisco. I have never known how it felt like when people tell me that they missed being home. After three decades of life, I have finally found a place my heart calls home. I feel irrefutably part of San Francisco, just as she filled the void in my soul when she became a part of me.

I have thought seriously about it, that I want to deliberately pursue meaning and not happiness, that may mean that one day I will have to make that heartbreaking choice to leave a place which makes me endlessly happy in order to be somewhere else that may need me more. I may not have the legal privilege to stay here for the rest of my life anyway, but instead of living in fear that one day this may be taken away from me, I want to choose to embrace this unexpected gift instead, even for a little while.

I have never been an unhappy traveller for my entire life, but this year was the year when I felt very disconnected while doing so. Yet I knew I needed to leave the place I love in order to love her wholeheartedly. Each time I return to her I experience the place with new eyes and a whole new layer of joy. The more I experience the world out there, the more I understand how special is my connection to San Francisco.

How can I love a place with so much of me?

But love is not counted in seconds. I have learned that love and life is symbiotic, one cannot survive without the other. To live is to experience, and to experience is to love. By default my lazy comfortable self would really be contented holing myself up for the entire holiday season, accompanied by books and films. Yet sometimes the unwillingness to take oneself out of a comfort zone can be disguised as contentment.

I know I have to start having new experiences, because if I stop desiring to experience, I would gradually go down the slippery slope of stagnating my capacity to live and love. It creeps up slowly on you, stagnation.

I tell people I have never driven for more than an hour in my entire life and they look at me in disbelief. Well, it helps when I am from a country where you can get to anywhere within 30 minutes, assuming there is smooth traffic. So I thought it would be a good experience for me to go on a roadtrip, even if the journey takes me two hours. Incremental changes, two hours is still an improvement over one.

The funny thing is, before I make my mind up completely, I always imagine the worst scenarios. In this case I tried to give myself a thousand reasons not to embark on my roadtrip, including cost, imaginary breakdowns, claustrophobia of being on an endless highway, getting lost in the dark, etc.

Like a metaphor for life, fear is irrational before the actual act. Not that I am a rational person at all, but while driving on the Pacific Coast it occurred to me that most things I do in life are not scary at all once I actually do it. Plenty of experiences become not that much of a big deal once we get past them. It is always the mind which magnifies the actual impact on our psyche, isn’t it?

I used to do things on a whim when I was much younger. I learned the hard way that doing things on a whim can be reckless and cause unintended hurt. But somehow along the way I went to the other extreme and started to over-think my actions in an attempt to be more considerate and mindful. I would like to grow a new adventurous spirit, with new-found inner peace and awareness.

There is a difference between being adventurous in order to escape and being adventurous for learning and experience. I am typing this entry at Monterey now – at this very moment I am thinking, experiencing travel while feeling grounded and aware of the person I am and who I want to become – I feel like I am commencing on a different chapter of my life, wearing a different set of lenses.

I no longer feel the same desperation to stay in San Francisco because I was afraid to lose that sense of belonging. Well, to be fair, for someone who has never felt like she belonged anywhere, this is a precious feeling which is somewhat justifiable to feel defensive over.

Being on this roadtrip emphasized and renewed my love for being a simple observer of life. This is why I travel, to remember and experience this world for being so vast, rich, beautiful and alive. There is so much heritage, so much evolution to be appreciated.

In the isolated corners of the highway I see life in the loud crashing sounds of the ocean, in those parts filled with both visitors and locals I see life in the interactions of people.

I await for the next moment to indulge me in an unique expression of life, while learning to immerse myself fully in the current one.

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