For anyone lucky enough to go travelling, we’re all well aware of the amazing reasons to go in the first place: new experiences, new food, new cultures, stunning nature, and (if you’re a UK girl like me) better weather! BUT I feel like there is so much more that you gain when you travel, that never really gets mentioned.
THE BUBBLE IS REAL
I think because I thought I ‘travelled’ a lot even when I was working a standard Monday to Friday office job, AKA went on a few holidays a year, I never for one second thought of myself as being in a bubble. Holy shit how wrong I was! Back home I was SO in my comfort zone, in such a little bubble that I had created for myself; don’t get me wrong it was a gorgeous little bubble, I had the best people around me, my house and a job that would give me a pretty good chance of making a comfortable living right up to retirement – but it was still a bubble and one that would be easy to miss no matter how much of an amazing time I was having on my travels.
When I first arrived in Sydney, I was on edge, more than I let on to pretty much anyone, but not in the way I expected to be. I thought it would hit me clear as day, ‘omg what have I done, why have I left behind a comfortable, happy life, am I crazy?!’ but it really didn’t, I just felt unsettled and on edge without really being able to pin point exactly why for the best part of a month and it was a difficult feeling to shake. I think a lot of it was just the time it took to get used to my new normal, but I think I also really tried to ignore that I was feeling anything other than on top of the world… I mean talk about a first world problem; I’m living my dream and travelling for a year – hardly sounds like the best reason for a pity party! That mentality just isn’t helpful though, rather than beating myself up for feeling that way, I should have accepted it and probably been more open about it as well.
There’s a fine line between being positive and just outright avoiding thoughts & feelings; travelling and working holidays are about as uncertain and different to ‘normal’ life as I’ve ever experienced, I know for a fact I’m not the only person who’s felt on edge or a bit overwhelmed by it all when travelling and I think that’s totally ok. You don’t see this side of travelling on social media, or hear about it in peoples stories from around the world, but like everything in life there is always flip side to the positive, amazing experiences that make our instas… as the saying goes nothing amazing happens within comfort zones and this experience has definitely seen me step outside mine, which at times has been terrifying but so worth it.
GRATEFUL AF
Travelling is probably one of the best ways to meet new people, it’s insanely sociable, like all the time… which is amazing, but if like me you kind of fit into the ‘extroverted introvert’ category, it can get a little draining. I love having my balance when it comes to being around people and having my own chill time, too much of either is not my dream. The first thing this made me appreciate was how lucky I am to have lifelong friends that require little to no effort to socialise with… I will never ever, ever, stop appreciating how lucky I am to have an amazing group of people in my life that just get it. All of it. I have people that know me better than I know myself. They know my humour, my sarcasm, my heart & my flaws and they accept me for all that I am. I knew I was lucky before but seriously, I can’t really put into words how much I love I have for my friends and how amazing that sense of belonging really is.
The second thing I found a whole new level of appreciation for was my mum. This really surprised me, not because I appreciated her, but because I had been living on my own, independently for nearly 6 years when I left to go travelling, so if anything, I thought this would have occurred to me when I moved out. I think the reason it didn’t is because all of a sudden I was living with a lot of people that were a similar age to me that were so so used to having their mum do everything for them, that things like cooking, washing, ‘life admining’ for themselves was not something they’d ever had to deal with. I never really realised at the time, but my mum really knew what she was doing by raising me and my brother to be super independent, secure people who could do all those things for ourselves before we even came close to moving out. Mum you’re a doll and I love ya!
PERSPECTIVE LIKE NO OTHER
If there’s one thing working on a farm doing mundane manual labour all day gives you its perspective! It gave me a whole new appreciation for office life… back home I could get a cuppa and snacks pretty much whenever I wanted, have a little chat, organise my own time; but it also made me appreciate the fact that I’m lucky enough to choose whether or not I want a minimum wage casual farmhand job or whether I fancy something different – not everyone has the luxury of choice.
Luxury was a word that took on a whole new meaning for me in the first few months of being in Aus. You might not think of things like having the freedom to decide when you cook or wash your clothes are luxuries, but they really are. When you live in a hostel with 30+ people and limited facilities, you realise how great it is to be able to pop into your kitchen when you’re hungry and actually cook there and then, rather than having to join a human traffic jam for things like a free hob or the microwave. It’s little things like this that can really shift your perspective; something I now try to remember every day is that a lot of the things in life I think of as chores and things I HAVE to do, are actually things I GET to do, sometimes it’s easy to forget just how lucky you really are.
As much as this year is about adventures, I was also looking forward to getting some distance from my normal life to work out what I really wanted in the future. I wanted to take a step back and in a way kind of pause my life back home to make sure that when I return, I won’t just be going through the motions only to wake up in 20 years with regrets. I still don’t really know what I want career wise, but I think slowly the pieces will start to come together. The distance really helps with perspective, even being out of a routine of a ‘normal’ life helps in ways that have surprised me. I’ve had the time & experience to remember even silly little things, like how much of an active kid I was and how much I enjoyed being outside, riding my bike and making the most of what was right on my doorstep. It’s little things like that that I’ll be taking home with me to make sure I carry on living my best life back in England.
FEEL IT IN YOUR SOUL
A lot of what I’ve written in this blog might sound obvious, but as cheesy as it sounds, there’s a real difference between thinking that you know all the clichés about being lucky to have the people / things / opportunities you have in your life, and actually feeling like you’ve truly learnt that lesson; so far this is one of the best yet unexpected things to come out of the first half of my travels and I can’t wait to see what the next 6 months brings.