Chasing Amy-Lou

I have contemplated the irony of love for a while now; well, the irony of love that seems to apply to me anyway. I have also spent many a night (and day) contemplating ‘the journey’ and wishing things would turn out the way I’ve dreamed they would, instead of having to deal with the cold, hard realisation that not everything will happen for me as it seemingly does for everyone else in their rosy fairytale lives (yes, I over exaggerate, but come on, this would be boring if I didn’t).

The date is 29th June 2015 and I find myself sitting on a bus in the pissing rain, driving through the Atherton Tablelands, listening to an eclectic mix of what appears to be all 90s music while surveying the incredibly beautiful landscapes far north Queensland has to offer; trying to shake the tiredness a day in the rain has evoked, and all the songs seem to provoke some kind of catharsis of emotion in me (probably nostalgia but lets sugar coat it a little more).

Every single tune seemed to be about love (aren’t most songs), life decisions, love again; unrequited love, finding love, keeping love, losing love; finding something or someone that makes you complete…all the love, till there wasn’t anything left to listen to except love.

A little swell of sadness reared its head in me; you might call it a longing. And then Wonderwall by Oasis came on. “I said maybe, you’re gonna be the one that saves me”. Well, that was it, those immortal lines opened the floodgates and I sat there, trying to conceal my quiet, pathetic sobbing, my loneliness, my heartache, behind my sunglasses which were totally uncalled for in the dullness of the late afternoon. Sad I know, but true. Love (or lack of it) does that to you. And tragically, it’s the only thing that seems to make any sense to me at the moment: feeling love, loving friends, loving family; wanting to be loved; wanting to be loved by the right person, by someone I love who will love me back in equal measures, maybe even in an immeasurable amount.

Travelling and meeting so many people who you ‘fall in love’ with in an instant because you kind of have to as they’re the only people you know, opens your heart. It makes you more open to love; it makes you vulnerable, it makes your heart vulnerable; you’re alone so you cling to that friend you spent ten minutes with at the back of a packed bus; that other solo traveller whose bags you helped carry to the top of the hostel stairs as she looked knackered and frazzled and in need of a stiff drink. And then you have to leave them. And leaving them seems so hard…until you forge a friendship with the next nomad from Brazil, or Germany, or Scunthorpe, or Newcastle.

But nothing compares to the ‘loves’ you meet on the road. Those short-lived ‘romances’ that you wish would last longer; that seem to be more than they actually and realistically are. You share a lifetime’s worth of memories in one moment. And it feels right. It feels perfect. You feel like you’ve met your soulmate. It feels like it’ll last forever. It feels how love is supposed to feel. You want to prolong that feeling for the rest of time; to be in that moment and similar moments with that person for eternity. And then one of you has to leave.

And when it ends, despite trying to convince yourself that it can and will continue once you return to your respective ‘normality bubbles’, it’s the worst feeling in the world. Thinking about that person becomes all-consuming. And you try to replicate it with others (because there will be others) but it’s to no avail. The sad reality being that people you meet on the road are just that – people you meet on the road: temporary solutions to a long-term unsolvable problem that can’t be resolved until you decide to stand still long enough to let love in from somewhere stable; to let love develop and blossom and grow.

But then that’s the problem with being a solo traveller isn’t it? That’s the problem with having what I like to diagnose myself with –  mild ADHD (I doubt I have this but it sounds good); and getting itchy feet, and leaving at the jump of a hat because you can’t bare to wait for something to develop as your impatience has no boundaries. You’re never in one place long enough to make anything work for real. You’re never in one place long enough to give something with potential a chance (I gave the fire service six years of my life, the longest relationship I’ve ever had with anything and when it turned out to be unfulfilling I jumped ship).

Maybe the secret then is to find a place you love and settle there? Or find a person you love (not hard if you’re me) and move to them? Is it that simple? Is that the answer to the irony of love? If only it was. If only it was…