five years later
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October 8, 2014. The big leap.
Five years later. Still leaping. Look at this leapfrog go.
Go, go, go.
October 8, 2014. Vancouver to London. Go. First solo trip. Go. Ready or not. Go.
I’ve said this before: I made the decision to travel extremely casually. Inevitably. It was like I didn’t have a choice. Once I was free to choose what I wanted, there never was any other possibility.
The last few days before that first nine hour flight to England, I started to feel afraid then terrified then horrified then mortified then I was a trembling butterfly of fear and resistance. I remember sitting in Tyler’s truck crying because I had realized that the future was a vast prairie I couldn’t see the edges of. I didn’t know what would happen next. I had been living in a shelter of safety and predictability for years—although now I would hardly call it living. For years, I knew that the next day would be the same as the one preceding it and that the weeks would string together like those paper dolls I made as a child. Time as repetition. It slips by so easily that way.
That first day in London, I was sleepless smoke. Everything looked as if I was looking out from a fish bowl. I don’t remember much. Flashes. On the second day, I cracked. Now I know many people experience this at the beginning of a big travelling adventure. I’m not sure if having that knowledge then would have made it easier—would have subdued the feeling that I had made a massive error, that I had messed up, that I was in the wrong place, that I had made the wrong decision, that I was stupid for leaving, that I should have stayed, that my life in Canada really wasn’t all that bad, that I had thrown myself into the deep end without first learning how to swim. In London, I was couchsurfing and had been given the guest room, which I couldn’t force myself to leave. I remember my host knocking on the door recommending that I go out and see the city. I must have looked so strange. Rat in a cage. In the late afternoon, my best friend with her reassuring texts convinced me to go outside. I wandered some nearby woods and took self portraits as the light of day faded.
There have been many hard days since. The road isn’t easy—but is anything?
Breakups and heartbreaks, two lost cameras and one stolen phone, too many goddamn speeding tickets, friends I’ve left behind, depressions I couldn’t quite shake, the two times I drained my bank account, nights when I didn’t know where I was going to sleep, feeling unsafe in his living room, not knowing how long I would have to go without a pay check, five hours in a German hospital because there was a hole in my palm, picking apart my life like fraying threads, bed-ridden and sick, lost and confused, lonely and then craving aloneness, saying good-bye, never going back.
Five years ago was the final closing of a door that I had been trying to shut for years but couldn’t quite muster the courage. What was behind that door was a life that I could have sleepwalked into. A life of always being too afraid to leap. A life of settling.
Maybe I’m wrong. Who knows what would have happened.
It just wouldn’t have been this.
Five years later, much less scares me. I’m ridiculously comfortable most places most of the time. I’m not as easily amazed as I used to be but I find it easier to be consistently deeply appreciative.
Sometimes the world feels like a pebble in my palm. Other times, I feel like a pebble in the world.
Honestly, this has been the most beautiful gift I could have ever given myself. Through it so much has sprung. Have I ever loved anything else or anyone so deeply? I wonder about that a lot. Will I ever? I find it so hard to be certain about anything.
Here is what I know: the people you meet really are everything, always be willing to change your plans when opportunity knocks, don’t chase big moments all the time—enjoy the small things, most people are just like you for better or worse, there is a beautiful freedom to being alone, ask for help ask for help ask for help, overnight oats are the easiest meal during long commutes, surprises and mistakes can be where the magic happens, find somewhere new that’s just for you.
I breathe this, I really do. I’ve had friends say they can’t imagine me ever not travelling. I’m not sure if that’s true. Life is so long. Everything has a chapter.
But now—for now—this is it.
When I was a child, chipmunk cheeks and squinty smile, I would pretend to get homesick. Our family vacations down the coast or into the forests or in the heat of Florida always included a spell of me wishing for the place I had always been that was the farmhouse in BC. I would listen to Home by Michael Bublé and imagine being back. When I was a child, I would create stories that I could live in, like being afraid of heights or pretending I couldn’t recognize my father without his beard. Identity was malleable. Maybe I was just trying to learn what fit and what didn’t. Regardless, homesick was one of these stories. I don’t remember ever actually yearning to be home but I liked how it sounded. In the same way that travel became a romantic idea as I got older, being homesick seemed like that too.
I’ve been homesick now (oddly, rarely ever for Canada) and I definitely never felt it when I was listening to Michael Bublé’s Home while sitting in the backseat of my dad’s truck with the dog panting beside me.
So maybe I always was going to end up here.
Here, there, anywhere, somewhere still unfolding.
2014
Canada - USA - England - Scotland - Malaysia - Bali
“I don't know when I'm going home or where I'm going next. The world has never felt so tiny, so large, and so full of possibilities”
“Sometimes I get stuck thinking about the past and I’m overrun by sadness, but then I remember that I am here, seeing the world, experiencing places that I had only ever seen in other people’s photographers. I’m so blessed to be here.”
2015
England - France - Spain - Portugal - Italy - Germany - Austria - The Netherlands - Ireland - Scotland - Canada - USA
“We are given the tiniest fraction of eternity and only one opportunity (maybe) to make the most of it. The pressure is immense. You have these limited years. What are you going to do with them? What will you dedicate yourself to? What is worth your time?”
“I wonder if I will ever feel at home again.”
2016
Canada - USA - New Zealand - Australia
“The road always calls me back. I am a wild, wayward thing with many miles still to go. The whole world in my back pocket.”
“The past two years have been the craziest and most unexpected adventure.”
2017
Australia - Greece - The Netherlands - Belgium - Germany - Czech Republic - Poland - Hungary - Slovakia - Austria
“Travelling is like air in my lungs and home life feels like intravenous oxygen—it keeps me alive but isn’t quite the same as breathing. I miss breathing—miss experiencing life like a skipping stone, only touching down for a moment at a time—miss being free of roots and obligations. The longing to drift is so strong. I’m ready to go again. I’ve been in one place for another as long as I can stand to be in one place—no matter how incredible.”
“Whew, this travelling life. Everything is so much louder on the road. It’s a crazy up-and-down sort of journey.”
2018
Austria - Czech Republic - Hungary - Romania - Bulgaria - Turkey - Germany - The Netherlands - England - Ireland - France - Spain - Portugal - Iceland - Canada - USA - Australia
“Where to begin? Sometimes it all feels like a bit too much. I’m not sure how too much was squeezed into such tiny chapters. Every blink of an eye is so loaded. It’s March. There’s snow in London. I’m on my own again. My heart hurts. Some things were lost, some things were found, some things stayed lost, some things I’m still looking for. Maybe I am seeking a break in the waves. There is just so much water, yknow? I’m trying to build an island in a break in the waves. I wish I would stop making the same mistakes. I wish I was taller.”
“The thing about travelling is that you leave pieces of yourself everywhere. A sliver behind your friend’s ear in Berlin, a fragment tucked under a coffee cup in Amsterdam, a shadow on a couch in Budapest where you slept next to your best friend, a laugh that could not be contained in London, a silence that could be filled in Bucharest. Everywhere becomes an extension of somewhere else. Everywhere becomes something to carry and some place to keep memories safe from the slow creep of forgetting.”
“Maybe that's why I love travel so much. You can always start again.”
2019
Canada - Australia - Iceland - The Netherlands - Germany - Ireland - England - Austria - Switzerland - France - Belgium
“Because staying here isn’t my life. Even if it would be a good one, even if I can imagine it being a good one, it isn’t my life. It’s not where I’m supposed to be.”
“Sometimes, when it gets close, I can feel an ending before it happens. Everything swells, brightens, becomes hyper real, and I can see everything without me in it, continuing on with inertia—not waiting—not biding its time, continuing. I can feel the memory before it happens, knowing that I will look back on this moment like a dog-eared page and I feel like I am sitting in the past already and I can feel it slipping away.”
“When I find something wonderful, it makes me wonder what other wonderful things are out there waiting. So I go. Is it dissatisfaction or curiosity that drives me?”
And to many more…