a girl in the world

I met a lovely Calgarian couple (Rita and Ken) yesterday on my cycle tour and like so many other Canadians I’ve met on my travels, they’ve done enough miles to circumvent the globe.  It’s always nice to talk to other travelers about traveling.  Usually they’ve learned the same tips and tricks and have garnered insight that you may sometimes think is unique to your own.

On our bumpy ride up to Batur yesterday morning, I learned that Rita traveled through South America in her twenties with her then boyfriend and as she described the ups and downs of traveling with a significant other, I couldn’t help but think about my time in Africa with the boy.  There were moments when I’d wake up completely frazzled, wondering what the heck I was doing in this tent in the middle of the back ass of nowhere Africa, with a boy who could be counted on to fall asleep in the middle of my sentences.  There were days when I would hate the world and could be heard cursing across the campsite and other moments when I felt like I saw the face of God (like when we were descending into the Ngorgoro crater at the break of dawn).  Travel can make you a little crazy.  Like Rita said, it has a way of revealing to you all of your deepest darkest fears and secrets, surfacing themselves through unexpected interactions, hardships, discomfort and prejudices.  The knee-jerk instinctual reactions to situations – the ones unrehearsed and unfiltered –  will oftentimes surprise you.  Maybe you’re not as open, loving, unprejudiced as you thought?  Maybe the things you thought you love to do you actually really hate.  Maybe you really can’t rough it like you so bravely assumed.  Travel is better than talk therapy!  Here are your fears and problems and insecurities – TAKE A LOOK, you can’t run from them, you’re in the middle of nowhere Bali and there is no turning back!  =)

I’ve felt a little cuckoo these last few days.  There are moments of such beauty here that I am at a loss for words.  The smell of the thunderstorms, the ecstasy of the food, the feeling that something spiritual is stirring around me, in every moment.  And in other moments, I feel like I might go deaf in my own solitude.  In the evenings, with no TV or internet to lull me to sleep, I freak out about my life, where I am, where I’ll be, who I am and what I want.  Yeesh!  Those are some pretty heavy life questions, coming at me all at once, in some little corner bedroom in dark damp Bali as the rain patters on the patio.

It has been beautiful and hard and humbling and testing.  Our ghosts are always with us.  Love’s past pains, our fears and insecurities, faces and people and things said that ring over and over in our minds.  In the craziness of life, the ghosts are pushed to the corners of the mind and heart, locked in some closet, hopefully never to be opened again.  But in the solitude and the new, away from the booze and parties and all things familiar, they have a way of revealing themselves and there is no way to escape.  No familiar coffee shop or close friend to run to, no sitcom to lose your time in, no Mama to cry with.  Just you and your ghosts and the courage to face both.

I am definitely facing my ghosts.  They haunt me everyday and slowly but surely, I’m learning to become friends with them.  We gossip about our youthful stupidity, we laugh about the pains and we cipher through the details to make sense of all that didn’t make sense before.  It’s like a puzzle coming together, one that is full of understanding and promise, that soon, everything will make sense and fall into place.  With the chaos will come peace, and when the demons speak, I will understand.