Highlighting and trying to navigate some of the things I think I've learnt on my travels..
A few months back and I had never flown internationally without my family. I had never taken a train on my own. I hadn't ever had to look after my own documents and passports, let alone look after myself. Consistent eating, hydration, sleeping, activity. The basics of living, that up until now had never really been my problem. These are the logistics, the technicalities of travel, that I have been taught, or learnt by trial and error. But aside from planes nearly missed and growing airport navigation skills there are surely other experiences and lessons learnt that are less...concrete. These ones, however, are a little trickier to put your finger on.
Travelling or not, when you grow up or exist in the ever present period of 'coming of age', you know you are learning but it's so often hard to say what. You feel different, developed, but I find that when people ask what my experiences have taught me I find myself falling a tad short. I'm just trying to figure it out same as everyone.
I think the travel I've done so far, and even this year of life in general (which has had some bloody trials as anyone close to me knows), has taught me to care less. Hostel hopping proved to me that diving in and being friendly and confident is the only way to meet such incredible people; having very little in the pocket has showed me how kind people are and that sometimes all you need to do is ask for what you're in need of, but also how to survive on very little. There have been so many wonderful souls feeding me and providing me with couches and beds and I couldn't be more grateful. Being away from your own friends proves the importance of letting go of pretences and being open to new friendships and social circumstances; sometimes you will be in situations that make you feel socially awkward or uncomfortable or like you don't know how to act, and the tip is you just have to not care! Don't think about how you come across or what people think of you, bc unless you do something drastically controversial, they probably won't notice your behaviour much anyway. Every time I do something as a result of overthinking I always look back and question how different it could have been if I'd been more relaxed and not trying to please people so much. And it 100% proves to me that that is the way to go forward in life.
Even in more superficial ways, I feel like through the travellers I've met and the culture of Edinburgh, which is a beautifully artistic and honest city, that the way you look is not something to worry about. Wear whatever you want because it's your body and your mind, and life really is too short not to wear star stickers on your cheeks bc you think people will care. Ever since cutting off my hair, which was always a weird sort of physical and artificial protection, a reason to feel attractive and feminine, I have felt so much better about the way I look. Literally, I feel better about my body. I'm less afraid to wear weird shit, or paint on some dark lips. Although I didn't love it at first, I felt liberated from the constraints of typical aesthetics of western attractiveness. I'm still making mistakes and I always will. I'm still afraid of things. I can still be terrible socially as I fluctuate between thinking too much and not thinking at all. And I still sometimes question whether people will think I'm weird if I wear children's dungarees all the time (which, yes, they do. But they are just so ridiculously gr8). But I am trying. So yeah, 1. This has taught me how to care less about, well, everything.
Número dos or deux, or whatever language I'm using idk, 2. You are never too old. Now maybe this seems like an obvious one but I always struggled with the idea of life running out, or reaching a certain age you have to do everything by, or doing everything you want to do in life, i.e travel, make things, study, fall in love, figure things out, etc etc WHILE YOU ARE A TEENAGER. NO. This is the stupidest, stupidest mindset to have, because you know what? You will still be you while you are doing those things and in a way you will always be a teenager and you will always have this mind and you will always be the you you are right now. There is no end to 'coming of age'. There was so much stuff I wanted to experience while I was younger, things that I wanted by teen self to experience, but I've come to realisation that you literally have your entire life, and anytime is the best time to do something bc there is no limitation on youth, and learning and the mixture of childlike wonder and rebellion that makes life exciting. I may never stop calling myself a teenager, idk. Sometimes I forget that I'm already twenty and not sixteen. But it's only because I have an expectation of what life should be like, and my life and mindset does not fit into my past expectations of what a twenty year old should be (i.e an organised, sheet washing, actual working human who drinks coffee, understands taxes and probably has a boyfriend called Geoffrey or something similarly shit (soz 2 da Geoffrey's out there)).
The classic celeb cult doesn't help either- Seeing people (who don't get me wrong, I admire) like Lorde or Tavi Gevinson who have achieved sooo much in only their mid-late teens. They have careers and achievements under their belts and maybe even a sense of self??... And I have three pairs of shoes, 35 unfinished artworks, some salmon I didn't eat last week slowly going off in my fridge and fluctuating body image. And I've learnt that that is FINE. In fact better than fine. The people I've met traveling, especially the wider, rather eclectic set of creatures between 18 and early 30's in my hostel in Brooklyn, have taught me that there is literally no limitation on what you do when. You might be twenty eight and just starting to get your life together and settle down, or you might be twenty one, finishing your first year of the professional work and realising that the other side of the world is calling your name. You can leave school, do camp America, live and work as a waitress for six months, travel India, then go home and go to uni, go on an exchange, move country to get work, settle down somewhere. All of it. Anytime you want. I've met the proof.
This sort of brings me to the next point, which is actually kind of the same point. Idk (sorry I've said that literally (also sorry) a hundred times), definitive ideas were never my strong suit... But it is this, point number three: Life has no linear path. The way you thought you might do things might be wrong. The idea that you were gonna go to school/uni/work might be wrong. The modern western way of thinking that says this formula is the only way to be happy; It's probably flipping wrong, in case you weren't getting the theme of this section. Similar to what I've said above so I'll be brief, but I've met people who never studied, became baristas, or started making and selling jewellery on the streets, or got internships of the back of pure determination and talent, who are living happy fulfilled lives. I find this so comforting. I find it so comforting to know that I'm only twenty and that there are thirty year olds who didn't realise how they wanted to live their own lives until a few years back. Not bc it makes me feel superior, but bc it reassures me that there are so many people just trying to figure it out. You don't have to pack everything (by which I mean school/uni/work/family etc) in before you're 25. You have literally all the time in the world, and infinite ways of living, that are outside the constraints of expectation. Life is not linear.
My last lesson learnt for now is perhaps the most simple. And it is that people are the most important thing. No matter where you are or what you are doing it is the people that will stick in your mind and make your day. Given all the places I've been, I thought by now I would have at least been to the Empire State Building and seen Big Ben or gone away to explore the highlands, but no. And I never regret not doing those things, bc I know what I have is just as, if not more, valuable. I get caught up on the people, in the movement and excitement, not the sightseeing and blatant instagram-tourist-bingo. Yes it's amazing to see so many wonderful places but everywhere I go I find myself distracted from the plans I had by the company I'm in. Doing things alone is great and provides learning of its own, but what really makes an experience is who you share it with. The creases round the corner of laughing mouth or the feeling of someone's arms around you are so so much more memorable to me than any monument ever could be. People are the most important thing. Always always always..
...
So that's what I think I've learnt.
Or maybe I'm just trying to convince myself, I don't know..
