Loss On the Road + Letting Go

I’ve had a lot of loss on the road, more than anyone might expect in a few years of traveling.

Just because you’re away, it doesn’t stop life from running its course.

In 2011 my aunty was killed in an earthquake that shattered my entire family.

A few months later, I was stabbed while traveling around Lombok in Indonesia.

And this month, my boyfriend and I split up during our travels. It wasn’t a good break up, not in any way amicable. In fact, it was very traumatic.

We broke up at around 3.30am in the morning and I packed my bags, booked flights to Bali and walked to the ferry terminal a few hours too early and I just sat there. He didn’t try to stop me from leaving.

I couldn’t believe it. This couldn’t be happening. The person I thought I was going to be spending the next few years adventuring with, and everything else we had planned, was now someone I had to leave behind.

He’d told me only the day before that he wanted to marry me. In a rap, that made me cry it was so wonderful.

I didn’t want to leave, but I knew I had to.

The ferry ride was hard… being left alone with my thoughts for a few hours after no sleep and a night filled with tears.

I had an interesting bus ride, where I made friends with four travellers who tried to cheer me up by sharing stories of their horrific food poisoning experiences.

And then I arrived at my hotel, alone.

I literally spent all day in bed, I forgot to eat, I hadn’t sleep. I just sat there. Sobbing.

You see, when something traumatic like this happens and you’re not around familiarity – friends, family and ‘home’ – it can be extremely isolating.

The following day was some 18 hours of transit, with a ridiculously long stop over in Singapore, where I just walked around like a zombie, lost in my own thoughts, fighting back my own tears.

Now I’m with a friend and things are becoming bearable.

Except for the mornings and the nights.

The mornings I find myself forgetting any of this has happened, rolling over next to me only to find he’s not there and then it all rushes back to me.

The nights I wonder why he didn’t talk to me, if we could repair this, flashing back through all the good times and the good memories. The way I felt in his arms. The way he looked me. The things he said.

It is an emotional roller coaster to say the least.

Whenever anything good happens in my days, I want to rush to call him.

Except I can’t.

Because the break up was so unexpected for me and traumatic, with no opportunity to talk things through or to work things out, there’s a lot of ache.

So I’m trying to fill up the ‘ache’ with good things. With nurturing things. I’ve been eating a lot of vegetarian food, shakes and smoothies. I’ve been going to yoga. I’ve been volunteering with kittens. I’ve been making new friends.

Today one of my new friends, Rosie, told me an interesting story. Basically about a friend of hers who had a short fling with an old flame. She spent so much of the time after it had ended worrying about why he hadn’t contacted her, why it hadn’t continued longer, and so on, that she didn’t stand back and appreciate those four days for what they were.

Her expectations ruined her reality.

Expectation is the root of most suffering. I expected us to last. I expected him to be honest with me. I expected him to talk to me when problems came up. I expected our travels to continue. I expected us to be able to work through any issues that came up. I expected us to be boarding a flight to Paris next week.

Right now I’m investing a lot of time in letting go of all those expectations. It is hard and every inch of my being is resisting it.

Because I cannot bare to continue with ‘our’ plans by myself – it would hurt too much- I’m going to shake things up. I’ve always wanted to go to South America.

I’m going to spend another two weeks here in Ubud, before hopefully flying to Thailand for three weeks to spend time with another friend. After that, I’ll fly to Buenos Aires where I’ll make my way up, stopping wherever I feel like.

This is not what I wanted from my trip. I wanted him. I wanted a phone filled with hilarious selfies and unforgettable memories. I wanted a future with him. Part of me wants to go to Bangkok in a week, board our flight together and pretend it never happened.

But sometimes that’s not what life has in store.

When I was a teenager, one of my friends told me to ‘go with the flow like a dead fish’.
So I’m trying to be a dead fish, floating all the way to South America.