It’s exactly six months to the day that I arrived back in England, and every day for those last six months I’ve wanted to leave again. I’ve wanted to grab my overnight bag and passport (which sit at the end of my bed by the way, already packed with toiletries and spare underwear) and leave. The destination irrelevant, the plan not formulated; all I’ve known deep in my heart is that I’ve wanted to escape.
To say I’ve struggled to fit back into routine life in everybody else’s ‘real world’ is an understatement. I’ve struggled to adjust to living back at home. I’ve struggled to adjust to the temperamental weather and constant rain. I’ve struggled to adjust to the attitudes and tolerate the outlooks of people I’m in contact with every day. I’ve struggled to settle into any kind of job. And I’ve struggled to accept that this reality, the reality of work, sleep, eat repeat is all that I’m faced with.
I’m not work shy (I’ve held down three jobs simultaneously in the past and am currently working a job I’ve grown to despise while at the same time trying to maintain a creative outlook for the two writing jobs I have. Which is difficult), and I’m not indifferent to the lives of others. I just don’t fit anymore.
I feel like a triangle trying to squeeze into a rectangular hole. I feel like a fork in a tray of knives; a bowl of Vietnamese street food in a room full of fish and chips.
And over the last six months I’ve found myself constantly seeking out others similar to myself. The nomads, the wanderers, the thinkers, the ones who are breaking the rules and doing things differently. I’ve found a couple of these types of people and have immediately been faced with an attraction that’s knocked me right off my feet; I’ve been floored by their zest and enthusiasm for life and travel and happiness. But while I fumble around trying to make connections with these people, I’ve found that they’re not really here – metaphorically they’ve already left.
At the same time, when there’s good times, and there have been plenty of them since I returned – family events; the routine of meeting my dad in the pub every Friday after work; a regular gym where as a member I feel part of a community; the nights out with friends; and the time spent with family – I feel like I could stay here, I feel like I could cement a life here. And I often feel that I should give staying in one place a chance for a change and see what materialises. The trouble being, I don’t feel that way for very long. It’s as if I’m in limbo but I don’t know what I’m limbo-ing towards, but, I suppose, in a way, that’s the fun of it all – the uncertainty of not knowing exactly where I’m headed, or to look at it in a different way, how I’m going to get to where I’m probably headed. I know there’s many doors in front of me, each one with a different path behind it, none of them wrong paths, none of them right paths, they’re just different. Knowing that I have options kind of makes the six month itch a little easier to deal with.
But as I struggle to decide on and spend time pondering over what I want to do with my life (everything, I want everything), which door to open and which path to go down, doing it all and achieving it all might not be an option any more though. I may have to forgo or sacrifice some dreams in order to work on others. I’m not sure if I’m ready to allow that to happen just yet though as the desire to fill my life with as much as I can is too overwhelming. What do you do when you want it all? What do you do when you want to take off and explore every nook and cranny in the world but also want to focus on a creative career and maybe have a family? Is it possible to do all of those things? I know I can achieve most of what I’m setting out to do but for the first part I need to leave the place I call home…again.
The six month struggle is real, the travel bug is real and if I wasn’t planning on escaping to warmer, more prosperous climes any time soon I think that before being forced into pulling myself together and creating a life action plan, I may just have buried myself in a hole by now. Knowing that I am due to embark on another adventure however, fills me with glee. The last six months have been hard, and the next six will probably be just as hard but there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and I intend to run towards it with my head held high and my eyes focused on the prize…whatever that may turn out to be…
Chasing Amy-Lou 