I really thought I'd keep up with blog posts out here. As it stands, I've managed one and not even about my surroundings. I'm in Vietnam now, almost two months after setting out. It's dusk and across the road a toddler is playing house, sweeping the floor, while his mum fixes a motorbike at the side of the road. Little flies flit about and Vietnamese flags line the road, waving in the evening breeze.
We are sat outside our hostel, in plastic chairs that would seem at home in a primary school, planning our upcoming week and snacking on fruits fresh from the market. It's bliss. Every day I think surely this is it, there can't be more peace. And then we'll spend the afternoon sat alongside the river, watching a local man fish in the shallows, drinking coffee and looking out at the mountains. And I'm proven wrong.
I didn't come out here to find peace, at least not intentionally. I didn't know what I was coming out for really. Other than to answer my itchy feet and need to leave the UK. But I guess that's what people mean when they say it finds you when you're least expecting it. Or is that love?
What I'm learning is that they might be the same thing. Love that I've known has been tricky. When I've seen it in my family it has been angry and lost, broken down between slammed doors and fading memories, cheated out of, found after many wrong paths. When I've felt it myself it has been lonely, unreturned and begged for, bruising and betrayed. It has never been peaceful. Out here though... I have started to love myself, truly and properly, and it has felt an awful lot like peace.
It's strange to admit it out loud. That you're a stranger to loving yourself. People don’t like hearing that, it makes them uncomfortable, they never know what to say. Even though we’re surrounded at the moment by body positivity movements and affirmations, mental health awareness months and the like, they still can’t handle it. Suddenly they’re confronted with the immediate need to insist otherwise, remind you of your qualities, comfort you. Like that will work. A quick fix. They mean well, so it’s okay.
I do the same when my friends doubt themselves. It’s easy to find beauty from the outside. Less so to see it in yourself. For whatever reason though, out here, that’s exactly what I’ve done. Finally. I think it has something to do with letting go. Of the responsibility I felt for others in my job, to deliver, to lead. Of the burden of figuring out what to do next. Of the need to look presentable every day, the need to find the mirror in every room to check I look okay. You can’t do that out here. Sleeper buses and overnight trains don’t have mirrors, hostel dorms either. You wear the same four outfits on repeat and no one cares. It’s freeing.
You’re also seeing some of the most gorgeous landscapes and that helps. We have dived and slid into waterfalls, biked through valleys and around mountains, spent days lazing on beaches with blue water and white sand, found cafes tucked away at the top of roads that look over the whole island.
Time moves differently too. For example, now I’m sat in Hanoi, sounds of honking and bartering streaming in through the open window next to me. It feels like yesterday when I was in Cao Bang, starting this. There isn’t time to waste on judging yourself, or others. Time is for moving, visiting museums, looking up to the sky, turning strangers into friends. All cliches sure but for good reason.
I feel incredibly lucky, not just because of the peace I’ve found in myself.
For the peace around me. The roof I can expect over my head, the calls I have with my family, the new food I eat everyday, the peace I can rely on. The world right now is shaking with anger for Palestine, but politicians aren’t listening. Everyday we have to keep calling for peace, for more than peace, because it’s unfair that we are the only ones who experience it. Privileged by no virtue other than the luck of the draw.
Educate yourself and then start speaking up. You can and so you should. Remember your privilege, don’t shy away from it, embrace the discomfort, be grateful for your daily comforts, and start changing things.
At some point I will actually get around to writing about my travels, what I've done and seen. Truly though, this has been the biggest discovery the last nine weeks.
That, on the road, I feel at home and, in my self, I feel content.
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