debrief

Posted on January 9, 2016 Updated on January 9, 2016

“Once a journey is designed, equipped, and put in process, a new factor enters and takes over. A trip, a safari, an exploration, is an entity, different from all other journeys. It has personality, temperament, individuality, uniqueness. A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us. Tour masters, schedules, reservations, brass-bound and inevitable, dash themselves to wreckage on the personality of the trip. Only when this is recognized can the blown-in-the glass bum relax and go along with it. Only then do the frustrations fall away. In this a journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.” -John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America

The past couple of weeks I have been reflecting on what I’ve wanted to share with you guys about my trip. I’ve written so many introduction paragraphs, but my thesis statement seemed so forced and not true to my voice that they’ve all just had to go.

Because in reality, there are so many things I could share with you about these past 6 months.

I could talk to you about a girl doing everything she could to grasp onto control while pretending to be the freest of free spirits and the dippiest of all the hippies, but how after some time and some mistakes and some beautiful people, she realized she wasn’t holding onto so much anymore.

About change and how I exclaim “impermanence!” at least five times a day because it’s the only consistent thing in this world.

About how sometimes it hurts and sometimes it doesn’t, but the essence of impermanence is that it is also passing, so I shouldn’t hold onto any of it anyway.

About how there are amazing people everywhere, you just have to be willing to meet them.

About how better than all the sites I saw were the moments I shared with people.

About how there is nothing more and nothing greater than this moment right now; we are just always in a fuss to discover what’s better and that’s often where our discontent is rooted.

And about how traveling is a magical antidote and will heal you in ways I still don’t even understand; it will break you and break you again just to show you how strong you really are.

But the question to end all questions is “How do you travel alone… especially as a woman? Aren’t you ever scared?”

And the truth is I’m scared all time. But if I let those fears get in the way I wouldn’t be traveling at all. Those fears stop me from living, so I have to believe I’m bigger than them. Because I am.

It’s either I live a life full of discontent because I let my fear control me, or I live a life of wonder because I shut that fear down by engaging in adventure. And only one of those options seems like a life worth living at all to me.

So let me set the scene: You’re clutching onto your bag in the middle of a train station in India. Sensory overload. It’s chaotic—an organized mess if you will. The queues are just big blobs of people. People are pushing around you. Others are sleeping on the floor waiting for their train. It’s dusty and grimy and is there even a trash can (or rubbish bin for my non-American friends) around? You’re the only westerner. You can’t hear yourself think. Sweat is dripping down your leg. A cow cuts you off. Wait, a cow in the train station? Yes. You step in shit. Shit. You’re pretty sure you are at the right platform, but where the hell is your train?… so you have to ask one of the many people already staring wide eyed at you. Oh, it’s late, and it will be here sometime in the next 2 hours. Cool. You start to doubt if you are actually going to make it where you want to go. (Spoiler alert: you do.)

It’s sink or swim and you always swim someway or another. But you have to learn that the easiest way to make it through is to float.

You have to let go of control and just to let things happen the way they happen. Because the more you fight it, the more you lose control. Like when you’re driving and you start to hydroplane… you don’t slam on the breaks, you just have to ride it out. And I’ve learned when you let go of control you’re never disappointed with the magic that unfolds because you can’t be disappointed when there are no expectations on the table. You can only be excited for what’s to come. The process is slow, but you just have to trust it– the ultimate way of letting go of control—trusting what you don’t know.

So you have to learn how to trust your intuition, trust your mistakes and keep moving forward. And slowly, slowly the best love story of all unfolds—the one with yourself. Because you start to truly believe how capable you are. And one day you wake up and realize you aren’t that insecure girl stumbling through a foreign country anymore, but you’re a woman who is sure of herself strutting with confidence in a beautiful world filled with so many opportunities. Because when you choose to say no to all your fears, there is nothing that can stop you.