“
You’re fucked up, Mister. But you’re cool.”
“I believe that’s what they call the human condition.”
” —American Gods by Neil Gaiman
Universal truth, that.
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I’m in my “it’s been a week since..” phase and I don’t know how else to cope. I had an AMAZING time in Siem Reap, Cambodia; everything about it was just perfect to me. So perfect that four days and four nights were nowhere near enough. The travel bug had been threatening to bite since the year began, and now it’s in full swing in my system. But since I’m back to reality now, I’ll just talk about what I love about being out there. Cambodia, and the world in general.
1. Tans.
Sure, outwardly I complain about getting dark. But the truth is I’m happier overcooked than in my natural fair-to-moderate color. Fair to me is lifeless, kinda dead. But roasted brown, man! What a lovely color! Even if it’s over-roasted. It signifies sunshine, and the wind in your face, the open road, the endless skies, and all the adventures they bring. It means that I’ve been out there, in the world, with the world, living life, and not cooped up in some boring ass concrete hole.
2. Planning, Preparing, Packing
The anticipation to me is a crucial part of every trip. Like they used to say in Advertising, “importante and magandang latag” (the proper set-up is important). It sets the mood, the tone of what your trip will be for you. It’s where your heart starts beating in excitement and your mind comes alive in wonder. It’s when your reality slowly shifts from your day-to-day existence into this exciting new experience (forgive the alliteration haha), so that when you finally step into your adventure, you’re 100% present and committed and ready. People usually take this for granted, taking pride instead in how quickly they could pack before leaving. But it’s not just about the packing. It’s the whole psychology of it. It’s like soldiers being prepared for battle; that’s how I am with travelling. I need to set that area of my brain in motion so that when I switch it on during my trip, it’s ready to take on anything.
3. Buying things
Whether as preparation for the trip, or during the trip itself, there’s something more fun about buying things in relation to travel. It automatically gives that object more value because from the get-go there are sentiments and memories attached. It’s purposeful, and thus more meaningful. Like, buying a bag is fun. But buying a bag you know will accompany you in a thousand photos makes it more important to pick the cutest bag. Or buying shirts. When you find one with the perfect balance of exotic, unique, and great quality to give as a gift back home, it becomes more thrilling to haggle with the local vendor than when simply fitting on another generic shirt in a another retail store in another mall.
4. Foreign Air
I don’t just mean from another country though, it could be local, just different from the usual air your breathe. I’m lucky I live in one of the cleanest cities in Manila, but when I go farther out into the metro, I could feel the gray clouding my lungs. That’s why when I breathe provincial air, and I feel the greenness of it on my face, I’m automatically happier. Even the smell of it tells you immediately you’re somewhere else now, let the adventures begin.
It’s official! My passport’s been stamped. Ohhhyeahhh! (Taken with instagram)
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What is excitement? (Taken with instagram)
Some of you may know that I’m fresh out of work, a week and a day to be exact. After months of agonizing about timing and consequences, it’s almost amusing how things actually went down. I think the Universe just got fed up with my brain vomits and did me the favor of removing me from the position. Basically, I was handed the chance to leave a week in advance, and I took it.
Over these past few days I had a lot of time to think, to mull things over, to do my usual mental cataloging of thoughts and feelings. And with nothing distracting me, the bulk of things I tuned out last year started to catch up.
Wants, needs, urges that came with my nature resurfaced, and there’s no reason to quell them anymore. After a year of filtering myself, familiarizing with the old me has been quite interesting. Freeing, really. I’m only remembering how I used to be and how used to act and the things I used to say. In many ways I feel like a newborn. I’m trying to grasp the language again, and how to use it. Sometimes I get overexcited and say too much; I think I even managed to offend somebody already without meaning to the least bit (and that sucks big time!). I’m in that in-between where I try to balance out my brain turned on and turned off again. I’m not a robot on auto-pilot anymore, and I’m only getting used to it after a year.
Old feelings are coming back too. Reactions to circumstances I didn’t have at all last year are happening again and it’s pretty cool. I now get angry when I used to be blah, I now get sad when I used to be blah, I now get excited when I used to be blah. Everything was in my head last year, in order to cope with the sterility of my situation, that I almost forgot about “feelings”. Now it’s as if blood is rushing back to “sleeping” limbs. It’s pretty awesome.
I still have a lot to sort in my head, as you know my brain works in drawers and compartments. It’s hard sometimes but it has its uses too. Haha. Hopefully at the end of this process I’m fully back to being myself again. I’m even speeding up the process with exercise. Good looking out; I’m so excited!
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“We must see all scars as beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived.” — Little Bee by Chris Cleave