Changes

 Every now and then it still happens that I see someone for the first time since I went travelling in 2011. And this usually goes like this “Last time I heard, you were still in Australia!” or “I thought  you were in Australia. What happened?” Or recently I was explaining someone I met for the first time that I was travelling and now I’m back and he looked at me and asked seriously “And you came back here? Didn’t you want to change?” I took a pause and he elaborated “I mean if I would go away for 16 months, I think I would like to change my life.”

I have reflected on this point - changing life/finding myself/whatever you wanna call it - at different times during travelling itself and after that. Back in August 2012, in a little village on Lombok island, Indonesia, just before going to conquer the Rinjani volcano, I was sitting in front of a laptop. When lifting my eyes from the screen I could see paddyfields, little houses, Rinjani towering on the background. My flight ticket to London was 2 weeks ahead. For many weeks I had been feeling that I don’t want to go back. Not just yet. No no. It felt very much like it would be a failure on my side if I just return. Just like that. So I wrote to my boss, that I don’t want to come back yet, so I guess I need to resign.

That felt so empowering! ...Until the day that the airplane, I was supposed to sit on, from Singapore to London took off. Without me. Talk about feeling emotionally paralised! I was physically shivering half of the day, feeling sick to my stomach. All of a sudden the job in Brussels looked pretty damn good. But then again not. I just didn't know if I was being incredibly stupid or wisely following the heart wishes. Very black and white I suppose.

Good thing was I was in the tropics, had no plain ticket to anywhere, no deadline and still plenty of cash from the 60h weeks of working in Australia. Incredible level of freedom. Only that my own head was always in some distance, tormenting me regardless of the surroundings or external conditions.  Until I gave up trying to figure things out right this instant and started to have good time and enjoy myself. Good things came on my way.

So now when this guy said he would have changed his life, I told him that my travelling did change my life. And that maybe not everything is visible on the outside. And I really believe what I said,  but I will not make a bulletpoint list.

When I returned this year to work at the same company, in the same project, I did not feel that I had failed myself. The fact that I’m in the same country doing a same job (now even different, but whatever), does not mean I have not changed. If nothing else, then I have changed my mind that changing a career is the main answer.