I am familiar with this inner temper tantrum, but I doubt I will ever become used to it.
Let's be quite honest now with poor grammar: returning home means I have to rejoin the "real world". It means I have to pretend to care about things that don't matter (primarily, MONEY- but the list is long) and probably do things that I don't want to do (read: get a job). And to be frank- I DON'T WANNA. I don't want to care about who's going where and doing what, I don't want to care about what to wear and how to look, I don't want to go back to the expectations and the borderline mundane familiarity. I don't want to care about who sees me and who doesn't.
The thing I love about travelling is that all of the rules and expectations from home fall away, and (with the risk of sounding ridiculous) I become the master of my own destiny. I decide where I go, and when. I decide who I see. I decide what I WANT, and that's what I do. It's pressure-free and it's wonderful. I decide how hard I work, and I don't worry about whether or not I am being appropriately compensated for my efforts.
I wish more people at home could feel the true, unadulterated bliss that comes with being free from the confines of money and its cohorts. How do I put into words the way wearing the same thing everyday makes me feel more free and connected to myself than any amount of $17 per hour yoga classes ever could? How do I describe the way that watching a group of kids playing soccer without a ball makes me want to hug the world? How realizing that the cheapest way may not be the fastest or the easiest or the safest, but it's the most fun? How being alone in a foreign country makes EVERYDAY an adventure?
It's funny, because up until very recently, I was actually really looking forward to coming home. I know it's what I should do, and I know that there are a lot of people who I will be happy to see. It's just this nagging feeling that I get every time I get close to my return flight- it makes me want to throw a hissyfit.
On the bright side, I have a week in Zanzibar to act as a buffer between my departure from Mwanza and my flight home. I am pretty stoked to be perfectly alone on a tropical island. Because if there is one thing I've learned on this trip, it's how to be alone without being lonely.
On the bright side, I have a week in Zanzibar to act as a buffer between my departure from Mwanza and my flight home. I am pretty stoked to be perfectly alone on a tropical island. Because if there is one thing I've learned on this trip, it's how to be alone without being lonely.
(Oh, and Happy Canada Day to my fellow Canuks!)
