Losing Myself (mom's spaghetti)--What Doth A Challenge Make

This is a stream of consciousness so I hope it's a bit confusing and the right kind of thought-provoking. An exploration of solo travel mental health afflictions.

I left home to struggle. My life in Boulder became "easy". I worked hard, studied hard, I had healthy relationships in my circle and, after several years of struggling quite a bit, I overcame mental blocks that impeded my peace of mind. Naturally though my days were too filled for me to get that deep into my mind. I would have kept learning and struggling and learning if I'd stayed. A quote from today:

"Western laziness consists of cramming our lives with compulsive activity, so that there is no time at all to confront the real issues." - The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

^I started reading that book yesterday. The philosophy it digs into is written simply and is mind boggling I am loving it so far. I'm only on page 30/300 but it is rocking me. I recommend reading it if you are human.

But I left because I didn't want easy. I chose destinations that I wanted to challenge myself with. The first few months were not hard, mentally. Of course there were road bumps (potholes galore) but they were quick to resolve--surface level. In India began a journey of hard. I've struggled since then to find myself again. I'm sharing this because I think holistic story telling is essential and my travels do not exclusively consist of cool moments. I might even be struggling during the moments I photographed as "cool"! Whaaaa

I am at a stage of my journey where I don't know what I'm doing. I am going to be in Nepal until end of May! All I do in the day right now is eat and drink and sleep and stress because I have nothing to do. Some might say that's their life goal, for me it's psychological torture-adjacent. I crave activity and mental stimulation. But for now this is remarkably important. I haven't had moments like this since I was a toddler; for my entire memorable life I have always had a built-in time occupation of school or work or social engagement. But it's been nearly three weeks since I have had absolutely nothing to do. I pushed myself to do some remote work, which felt great and I was craving mental stimulation and some STEM code-completion flavored gratification. But it's a distraction from the work I need to tackle in my head. At the same time it's humbling and a reminder that many people finish university and have nothing to do for months at a time while they search for a job in this dogwater job market. I am so impressed that there aren't more people in asylums because doing nothing is really really hard mentally and I'm finally having to work on that.

The other day I was confronted with the question: "What has been your favorite country so far?" I do not like this question, it's trivial. After some mild headaches I came to the conclusion that while my worst experiences were in India, being there was the most important part of my journey to date. I learned the most. In fact, finding myself after leaving India was terrible. I didn't feel like myself, I didn't recognize my smile, and I wasn't kind for fear of my efforts being abused. That's no way to live! For me, anyway; some people enjoy playing Scrooge and while I used to enjoy that too I now find great pleasure in not being an asshole.

As corny as it sounds I went to a yoga class in Kathmandu, a month after being in India, and the teacher did some sort of sound healing with some bowls and when I stepped outside I had a soft smile on my gob. It's the smile I hadn't seen for a month, it's the smile that is me. So a little tear slipped down my cheek and since then I have been feeling more and more whole.

My existence is an illusory interpretation of reality based on egocentric relativity... I sound like a pretentious butt with that sentence but I'm feeling like a pretentious butt, so.

• If I'm having a bad day and someone is having a great day, they are annoying.

• If I'm having a great day and someone is having a great day, they are awesome and I want to spend time with them.

• If I'm having a great day and someone is having a bad day, they are a party pooper and I want to steer clear.

• If I'm having a bad day and someone is having a bad day, they are relatable and I want to engage in conversation with them.

I'm working on patience and not rubbing pooey energy off on others when I'm feeling pooey. It's okay to feel pooey, but it's important to recognize if you're being contagious or having healthy healing conversations. AND I am really trying to work on being there for other people when THEY are feeling pooey and I am not, and remaining empathetic without letting the pooey infect me unnecessarily.

It's all to say: everyone struggles. I have some friends that for a few weeks after we met I thought they were the most unafflicted, confident, incredible people. I still think that, and sometimes it takes time to see, but what makes them so remarkable is that they are the ones that struggle and learn and adapt and overcome. I know how toxic media can be, and I know most people only post their highlights so sometimes it feels like you're the only one struggling. I don't want people to get anxiety when they read my stuff and that's why I'm sharing some of this.

Pictures I took while in moments of struggle; sometimes I looked it and sometimes I didn't.

iLLuSiOn.

At least I fare better than the sidewalk worm

I struggle. Of course. And everyone to their own ways of overcoming. Sometimes I bed rot and scroll on my phone for hours to avoid my brain, and other times I get off my feet and do something about it. It's not a formula. This morning I spent an hour on Instagram watching videos of toddlers throwing cats in garbage cans and now I'm pretending to have my life together and drinking a turmeric latte. Yeehaw transparency.

Some lessons I am learning by process of tribulation:

• If people take advantage of your kindness, they need kindness the most. I cannot stop being kind just because some people see it as a weakness.

• I can equally not say yes to everyone I meet because my life would be absurd (more so than it is now). Kindness does not equate to blind agreement.

• Just as fields need time to fallow and recover from years of farming, I now need to sit and be. The biggest work now is to learn how to do nothing and in doing so find contentedness with myself and my thoughts.

• I began to care about money and fear being scammed. It does not matter, money does not matter, being scammed out of a couple dollars does not matter. Scamming matters if it substantially affects your ability to live. So far it's come nowhere near and yet I've allowed it to matter.

• My privilege is marked. I have dual citizenship in countries that permits me to travel freely through the world. When I run out of money I'll just go back to somewhere and get a job. How unreal is that? Who am I to be stingy?

  • Sidenote, I am incredibly stingy. I'm working on it. It's good to be stingy in the ways that count and generous in the ways that count. It doesn't matter if my cheapest-in-the-city-hostel bed has gaze-repelling stains, but if I buy some bananas from a street vendor it might be supporting more people than I imagine. Note to self, buy some bananas on my way home. Edit from the future, the guy scammed me for the bananas but I shrugged it off woohoo I'm learning. Made a difference of like $0.50. Will not affect my life. Nope.

Anyway. I'm learning to have no purpose and find satisfaction in the little unimportant things. Today I started reading the crazy Tibetan book and that was wild. Yesterday I went to a kickboxing class and I almost threw up, it was hard, and then I had a call with my therapist for the first time in nearly a year and that was good. I'm gonna call my grandma later and it will be refreshing to chat. I wandered in the street yesterday for an hour and almost got run over a few times but it's okay because I didn't. Tomorrow I have nothing to do, no plans. Maybe I'll keep reading my book. Right now I'm sitting at the same cafe I've been coming to for three weeks and watching an influencer pose with her makeup tube. But I finally have enough points to redeem for a free coffee, WOOT.

Micro poems I wrote today:

Life is laughing until you cry

And crying until you can laugh.

No matter how I am doing

I fare better than that sidewalk worm.

I'm currently curious about journalism, anthropology, and freelance writing. If anyone has any recommendations for that bandwagon of life please please let me know.