Trapped In The Margins

*From January 2, 2017

Watching travel videos and blogs about traveling got me into trouble. I believed that I could travel the world on a shoe-string budget, meet incredible people, and have adventures every day. The Internet did not show the difficulty of traveling. Those moments where things go horribly wrong. The days when you miss home more than you can bear. The moments of difficult encounters with immigration and police. The moments where you thought it wasn’t worth it. The moments where you have no one to talk to and getting out of bed seems like a chore. The moments where your bank account is crying and you don’t have enough money to book trips to other places. The moments where the food tastes like garbage and you lose weight because you’re not eating well. The moments when you bawl your eyes out because it’s the only thing that feels right. The moments where you sit in your room and watch videos because your mind is a prison and you are both the prisoner and the warden. Those moments. No one talks about those moments so I’m going to be the one.

No one talks about when you get offered free absinthe after taking fire shots and you spend the rest of the night making stupid choices like pretending to be a pimp, taking random guys’ photos, and walking home in the dark while snapchatting the entire endeavor.

No one talks about when you meet the most incredible person that you have ever met but you’re both sad and every conversation is serious, silly, frustrating, and maddening. That person becomes your person if only for a few months then you have to fuck off to whichever country you came, leaving that person in a pit of despair while you are also in the same pit on the other side of the world.

No one talks about the depression that hits when you’re back home. Because home is no longer one place but every place that you lived. Life was colorful and frightening but you felt alive. Even if that lasted only for a moment.

No one talks about how you begin to dream in other languages. Words and phrases ricocheting across your dreams, begging to be held if only for a moment. Waking up in confusion because you try to capture those sweet dreams but you can’t decipher what they mean.

No one talks about the beautiful people that you meet but are too afraid to make a move. Paralyzed by archaic reasons. Finally opening up to that one person only to find out that they are interested in someone else. Of course…so you quickly turn the conversation into an effort to help them score their dream person. Poor timing, I guess. Next time.

But there’s never a next time because you’re never going to see that person again. And that’s the worst part. You only have those moments that are far too fleeting. You’re left to only dream about memories and refuse to dream about something bigger because you don’t want to lose it all over again.