You can plan your journey but not how you will feel on it
I booked a cheap slow train (5 hours) to Rome. My wants from the trip were to feel closer to my Irish/UK comfort zone. I planned a visit to Primark (Pennys) and some other brand stores. I wanted to eat non-Italian food but by day 3 I was missing pizza and ate carbonara pizza and slices of potato pizza.
On the bus out of Rome to the Shopping mall that houses Primark the countryside reminded me of home. The green fields were the same colour and were dotted with sheep and had crumbling ruins. I let myself float in the feeling of being in Ireland. It was the dose of home I needed. That and a mooch around Pennys.
I was also flooded with memories from my first solo travel trip. It was to Prague in my early 20s and I had decided that if I was going to travel I needed a shorter trial trip.
I booked 10 days in Prague in November. I was nervous about staying in a hostel so I booked a hotel. My budget, or more likely my frugalness, didn't stretch to a hotel in the city centre but one on the outskirts of town. I'm not sure if the internet existed in those days but if it did it wasn't used the way it is now, definitely not by me, so although I knew it was colder in Prague I was not prepared for how cold. Each day I had to wear ALL the clothes I had brought.
I would sit on the tram feeling cold and lost, feeling comforted by the little fire heated the seat. O.k I'm not sure there was an actual fire but it's what I imagine as these trams were so old and rustic. I liked to think that the driver goes around stoking the fire under each seat on his driving breaks.
No one spoke English, it was overwhelming and upsetting. I felt so out of my depth. It was a travel off-season trip, there were NO tourists that I saw, and the locals knew NO English. It was stark in ways I could not have fathomed. I was so far out of my comfort zones I felt anxious, scared even, and lost all of the time. Before this trip, I had been on 2 resort holidays with friends, and the annual caravan holiday in the same resort in Tenby, Wales with my parents.
I cried on the hotel phone to my mum most evenings. The cost of her phone bill could have flown me home in a private jet no doubt.
I hated it all, even the free hotel buffet breakfast was upsetting. Continental there was bread, ham and cheese, a traditional Irish school sandwich in my world, luxury since mostly it was ham OR cheese sambos.
I came home from that trip and booked a 6-week camping trip off-season ( because I don't like crowds or partying) around the Greek island. nothing was pre booked apart from the flights and when I arrived I learnt that most campsites aren't open in the off-season. I haven't learnt my lesson but I stayed and made it work. I enjoyed it a lot more than Prague and by the end of the trip, I had fallen in love with an Australian guy I met while lost in Crete in the middle of the night.
I've been told I should write a memoir of my life and I do have a lot of great adventure stories so many jumped into my mind on this Rome adventure, see Rome Adventures Blog for the dramatic adventure on this trip. Warning they are a little scary and gruesome.
In this blog post I want to write about the feelings that came on this trip.
I saw myself and felt great admiration and gratitude for all that I am and always have been.
I KNEW myself and constantly was me no matter how hard I tried not to be. I just couldn't help but show up as myself in this world and found moments to live in a way that made sense to me.
I tried time and time again to be “normal” to fit and want the Societal norms but it always made me so unhappy.
I have faced a lot of resistance in being accepted and loved as I am, and I tried hard to be more like how I thought I should be. I am so grateful that my true self resurfaced time and time again with mad adventure and crazy ideas and forever trying and exploring what is available in this world.
This trip felt like a quiet and gentle celebration of all that I am as a unique individual as well as how far I have come in my mental and physical health recovery.
One of the days I walked 21K steps. Epic for a recovering spoonie with tendonitis.
I was filled daily with so much love, amazement and appreciation for who I am and all the living I've done given the many hurdles I've tripped over.
When I planned this journey I never realised it would fill me with such a clear view of myself, all of my wonderfulness. It felt like a celebration for all the courageous work I have done on myself, healing from trauma, mental illness and so much physical struggles.
