Lately, and most recently within the past weeks, I’ve been fighting an overwhelming desire to leave the U.S. again. Every morning I wake up I feel this total void. The void can only be described as a huge pit the size of a fucking watermelon deep in my stomach. I shake off the nostalgic memories of eating mangoes on the beach in Koh Samui and the ritualistic hijab wrapping every morning I was in Saudi Arabia.
I shake it off and slump throughout the day. Smiling when I’m supposed to smile. Laughing when I’m supposed to laugh. “Mhhhmming” when a mhhhmm is socially required.
I was recently inspired by Nomadic Matt’s blog about the people closest to him telling him he’s always running away. And it’s true. He claims it to be true. I claim it to be true. Friends and family tend to giggle and eye-roll when I speak of wanting to leave again.
I’m gonna move back to Thailand and teach English!
I’m gonna move to Costa Rica and teach yoga at a resort!
I’m gonna go back to Istanbul and learn under Chris Chavez!
I’m gonna go hike the PCT in April!
These ideas of mine change on the daily. And sometimes I execute them. And sometimes I don’t. But any time I bring up a change of scenery, the most normal response I get from those around me is that I’m running away from some type of problem. My repsonse? YES.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
I’m running away from YOUR idea of what it means to live life. I’m running away from sitting in traffic for two hours a day. I’m running away from phone bills and pills and stagnation and authority.
And instead…
I’m running to MY idea of what it means to live life. To be able to pack up all my necessities in that orange North Face backpack of mine with all the patches of all the countries I’ve been to sewed on it. To sleep on train station benches. To walk miles to a destination. To live off of a whole pineapple a day because I have no money left. To meet beautiful souls and go chasing waterfalls and hitch rides in the backs of dusty trucks. To make my money and work when it’s enough. And to be wise enough to know when it’s enough. To know I have my own back. To look in a tiny Bangkok hostel mirror and look into my eyes and know that I’ve got my own back.
I had a friend very recently tell me that I should stay here in Denton for at least a year before going abroad again. Her intentions were totally pure and she’s someone with so much wisdom that I listened and really took her advice to heart. But I also feel like my idea of “normal” and being “grounded” isn’t the same as those around me.
My idea of normal is not knowing where I’m laying my head at night. My idea of normal is eating a weird fruit that you’re not sure if you bite straight into or peel. My idea of normal is stepping off a plane and having all that white noise of a foreign language flood my ears. Of having all those new country smells infiltrate my nose and brain and memory.
Nomadic Matt says people often tell him “Do it this way if you want to be normal. Well, I don’t want to be normal,” is most often his response. And I couldn’t agree more. I like that I drive a shitty car that I don’t make payments on. I like that I have a family supportive enough to take me in without being committed to a lease or IKEA furniture or all those “things” that define me as “normal” according to American society.
There’s nothing wrong with me or you or him or her or us or them. We all have the ability to choose the way we perceive things. Some of us need that stability, that routine, that grounding. Some of us need the unknown, the spontaneity, the lack of authority. I want to smell every smell and hear every language and climb every god damn mountain. And I won’t stop until I do.
So I urge you to do the same. Whether it’s a week or a month or a year or forever, go get inspired. Go see something out of the norm. Open your eyes to the beauty around you and know that it’s never about running away. It’s about running TO.
Run to all that possibilities, sights, smells, adventure, possibility, train stations, weird ass food, weird ass people. Just go, go go.