Need to get out of myself.
Back in the UK and everything seems shit so far. Remembered that I've got no friends, job, girlfriend, prospects, anything, to come back to. Instead I get to leave my sister for another 2 years again, and leave the most amazing country.
I really did love it in Australia.
There was something about it, and I cant put my finger on what, that just made me feel so much more... alive than I've felt recently. I didnt have to worry about the shit at home, about what I'm gonna do next with my life, about college, grades, university, money, life, the universe, and everything etc. I could just enjoy myself. Live.
Sure, Australia let me down on the one thing I'd asked it not to, eg a nice girl :P but you cant win everything eh :/
But in all serious, being home (so far) sucks.
I just feel so, bored of everything. There's no excitement, no day to day thrill. The whole time I was in Australia I couldnt shake the feeling of awe, I guess. I couldnt get over the fact I was literally on the other side of the world to everything I've ever known in my life, and that it didnt feel strange. It felt right.
Yeah its weird seeing as I'm more of a winter person than a summer person, but it was their winter after all! Would I be able to hack an Australian summer? Hopefully, in the future, when I'm who I want to be.
Even in Singapore I could feel this huge pull coming from the world. The different people, the architecture, the sights, the smells, the food, just... everything! It was like I could physically feel something trying to stop me from coming home, telling me that I dont want to be there, there's nothing real for me there. I dont quite understand it.
Almost everyday while I was in Australia, something would amaze me. Just the sky in the morning, or the breeze... the other side of the sun and the moon seemed brighter, better, cleaner. Happier. Every sunset was like a punch in the heart, crushing the breath from me. Every sunrise woke my brain up with it.
I dont get it. I sound like a gushing moron I know, but I cant help it. I know I've only been back in England two days and some of this will be the jetlag and time difference jumping speaking, but I honestly felt happier over there.
Obviously I had my bad days, as my twitter followers and friends will know, but somehow, all I had to do was go outside and look at the sky, or take a deep breathe, or look at the sea, and I'd start to feel better. Maybe it was the fact that all I was doing for 8 weeks was exploring, you know? Not really living like, a normal life with work and learning etc, just actually living, not having to struggle everyday, I know its different to the real world.
If I'm honest, this is where I wish I was better off financially. To be able to say "fuck it I'm off" and not have to worry about the fact I wont be working, to just take off and go wherever, really live, is something I'm beginning to crave. I know money isnt the be all and end all, god knows I know that, but it'd certainly make that kind of life easier.
I dont really know what I'm getting at here at all.
I guess maybe this is a good thing, this feeling of home-alienation? I can still feel that pull.. now, being home, it feels like something's missing. As an example; my writing. Usually I take 6 months to fill a Moleskine with my poetry/verse/ideas/quotes/whatever - I finished the final third of one, and another whole one in the 8 weeks I was away. Something opened me up, and I couldn't stop, and I loved it. I wouldnt say I felt 'inspired' as such, but it was something near it, something like it. All these words kept coming to me, with every kilometre of Aussie outback covered, I’d fill another page, with every city blocked traversed, another page... you get the drift.
I could have drawn for hours if I’d had the time. If I’d had my guitar, and again, the time, I could have written hundreds of songs. I was itching to get my hands on some paint and canvas, paper and charcoal, graphite... clay whatever, anything. My throat was aching to me singing something I dont know... god I sound lame. Photography became something important, something almost necessary, day to day. Capturing moments, images, people, breathtaking views, anything... it was like I began to need it.
Actually to be honest, it was like I started to find all the things I had never even realised I needed. New air, new scenes, new people, new everything. Nobody knew me. Nobody at all. Sometimes that scared me, other times it thrilled me. I went for a half hour walk around Singapore on my own while we were there, in the evening. The sun was nearly setting when I set out, and by the time I got back to the hotel, it had painted the sky pink and purple. People smiled at me when I passed. They didnt avoid my eyes, they didnt nearly push me over in a hurry to get somewhere. I felt... more human, while I was away.
More human. Sounds odd to say that. But the truth is I havent felt very human for a long time. I still dont; I still feel broken, like all the different people that have moved in and out of my life have taken little pieces of me with them. I still feel like I’m not wholly, really living, more like just existing, just getting by on a daily basis. I still feel like a ghost somedays, a ghost of who I used to be, who I am, who I want to be. I dont feel whole. I dont feel human. I dont feel right. I havent for the last two years, and those of you who know me, who I love and trust, know some of why. But while I was away? It was like the pieces of me that had been taken, remebered where they were supposed to be. They didnt necessarily come back, but they started to drag themselves out of their pits and wake up. I think I started to remember how to live again, I started to remember that there are good things out there, things that can make me happy. It was a start.
And now I’m home again. Back where all the bad memories linger, where all the stains of friendships and enemies and everything in between are all over the walls of every corridor, every pavement, where everything hides and waits round corners to punch me in the gut and leave me winded. This is where I am now.
Maybe this feeling like I’m missing something now is a good thing. I can kind of feel that it's ignited something in me now... it's not a roaring fire, more like a little flickering flame thats remembering how to use oxygen to help it burn, but it's there. What is it though? That hunger, that thirst... a passion. Something is burning in me now. I felt something click in Singapore, at one point. I suddenly realised; “the person that I want to be, she’s not at home. She’s inside me but she isnt. She’s everywhere I’m not, where I havent been. Everywhere that isnt home, that is home. In everyone that doesnt know me, but could. She’s out there. I'm out there. Somewhere. I have to believe that.” I do dont I? It clicked. I was sat on the top deck of a bus looking out at some of the most orignal, astonishing pieces of architecture, towering over ages old buildings and parks and lives, watching hundred of people of every race, just living side by side, and something clicked.
The world is out there. Maybe nothing will ever come of this. Maybe I'm just ‘doing a me’; getting all excited about something because I've enjoyed it once. But maybe, just maybe, I'm serious this time. The world is out there, and it's everything my past has never been. It's waiting for everyone, but I can hear it calling me. I want to travel. I want to see things, I want to live some more.
Hell yes I'm terrified now; I'm not sure I can do anything in my life on my own, that I'm capable, or worthy, of anything. But fuck it. I can dream right? And if I wake up one day, on the right side of the bed, in one of my good moods, I can tell the world to shut up and let me out, and let me in. One day, I will live. I will live the dreams I found myself having over and over again in Australia... I’ll drive around that huge red rock in a campervan, with a guitar, a camera, a laptop, a didgeridoo, paints, canvas, everything, and see it all. I’ll park next to Uluru and drink to the sunset again. I’ll lie on the beaches and do fuck all. I’ll do the crazy, crazy Syndey Harbour bridge walk, and the Sydney Tower skywalk, and the Melbourne one. Live it all. Hell who knows, maybe I wont have to do it alone. God knows in the dreams I wasnt always on my own. I had someone there, her. Someone to share all that with. All the awe, the wonder, the magic of nature and people and the world, ignoring the evil, the shit, the hell, and living in smiles to each other, to anyone. Whatever.
I cant stay here forever. I’ll go even crazier than I am now. College is waiting for me, and I’ll go. Sure, I've already paid my dues, but I’ll pay some fucking more. I’ll get the A Levels, I’ll work hard. Maybe I will do that photography course... it’ll mean another two years from now, but so what? I’ll get a job, learn some languages, save up, etc. I’ll do a while’s hard slog, (yes, more) and then do what I really want. I still want to teach, yes, but teach what? Just english? Or do I want to be someone with more to give? University will wait. I’ll travel first. Australia will see me again. Then I’ll settle down. Maybe.
If there's one thing I've learnt over these last two shitty years, it's that nothing is certain. We may like it to be, it may suit us a hell of a lot more to have the control, but we dont. Nothing is certain, everything is fluid. If you were to tell me when I started college that what has happened to me would happen to me, I’d tell you you’d got the wrong person. Not me, nu-uh. I'm sorted me, I'm fine. I know what I'm doing, my life’s mapped out for me. And it was. And then it wasnt. It's all changed so much, and it's freaked me the fuck out. Life spat me out, held me over the edge of a fiery pit, pulled me back, threw me into the pit, pulled me out then left me smouldering. And I've taken it. I've taken every fucking minute with a smile or a grimace or a yell or a tear, but I've taken it. I've taken my crap in life, and probably some of yours. No more.
I've been hell’s bitch for so long. Now life’s gonna be trained to be mine. I'm restless now, restless as hell, for something, anything, and I'm going to get it. But just bear with me, because I'm slow.
Sorry for the ramble. Sometimes this shit just has a tendency to pour out of me, and there's nothing in hell I can do about it, even if I wanted to. So there it is. This is England. This is me. This is life. And it's nothing I want it to be.
Not yet, anyway. Not just yet.
