Crying at Indulgence
I'm on a Much Needed Break [16]:
I’m on an island of dreams. A fever dream rather, where I pinch myself every single day. I needed this. Let me tell you why.
My life has always been attached to travelling. The big milestones and the little ones. My parents work in the airlines industry after all. My brain couldn’t literally function without me being on the go, seeing new sights, taking in new cultures, forcing my mind to veer off the usual trajectory.
In a hotel room, I prepared an interview for my ex-ex job, one that proved to change my perspective and skillset in numerous ways. While on vacation in the southernmost island in Viet Nam, I signed on my first lease in Texas. I locked myself in a hotel room for a week in Hoi An due to social quarantine protocols immediately after my last college semester. This blog, in a full circle moment, was born in downtown Seattle while I had a layover earlier this year.
In essence, my *core memories* happened while on a plane, in a lodge that is not my house, on the road, in a boat, an Uber, a ferry. I learned shit when I’m on the go.
Inevitably, when my feet are chained in one place, things got messy. Ridiculous thoughts on quitting, excessive worries on money, paranoia, etc. transpired.
I had a problem with spending money. It exacerbated once I started working full time. Fixating on saving, I lost sight of the occasional necessity to spend. I was all about that deferred satisfaction. I watched personal finance gurus who dissed women who bought $5 latte, become very jealous with peers who have saved $100,000 by 20. I didn’t let myself have nice things, I don’t think I deserve any of it.
Denial was a close company. I don’t need to attend this event because it costs X, I don’t need to get a car in Texas because the current market is bonkers (I still don’t plan to get one), I don’t deserve to live in a more lively area because costs are climbing everywhere, even more so in Austin. Most recently, I cried in a Sephora when my dad told me he would pay for a bottle of my favorite cologne.
I think travelling helps me so much because it allows me to put into words emotions and feelings that I couldn’t understand when I’m by myself. Last Saturday, on a walk around Bde Maka Ska with a college friend, I said it out loud for the first time: “I felt lonely.”
Ever since the move, I had not voiced my loneliness. I insisted on describing post-grad life as alone and not lonely. I had a lot of friends, right? I can call up people from any and every major city in the US and Viet Nam if I really need to socialize. I might even reconnect with friends living in Europe, parts of South East Asia and Central America. I can’t be lonely when I bump into acquaintances on a random flight, had 800 friends on Facebook and can call up people from across the world if I really really need it.
Yet, day to day, a deepening sense of isolation and hyper independence enclose. I tell myself I don’t deserve good things. I am already so privileged, so I better shut up about a tiniest sense of isolation.
I can do everything alone. Moving houses, getting a new bike, learning how to drive, finding a place to live, travelling, going to see a movie, eating out, etc. The thing is I can’t. I fucking can’t. Life is not meant for moving alone all the time.
On a six hour flight to Honolulu, I watched Encanto and cried like a kid. I realized I was all of them at once. Like Luisa in Surface Pressure:
“I don't ask how hard the work is
Got a rough indestructible surface
Diamonds and platinum, I find 'em, I flatten 'em
I take what I'm handed, I break what's demanding”
“Under the surface
I feel berserk as a tightrope walker in a three-ring circus”
and Isabela in What Else Can I Do?
“What could I do if I just grew what I was feelin' in the moment?
(Do you know where you're going? Whoa)
What could I do if I just knew it didn't need to be perfect?
It just needed to be? And they'd let me be?”
and in Mirabel through and through, having no superpower, nothing to prove but her wonderful clumsy, imperfect being.
I thought I could do all things by my own, shouldering pressures, loneliness, housing, living, finding happiness. Anxiety has taught me that and America helped solidify it. Yet when I am far away, surrounded by beautiful scenery, trails and oceans, glimpses of light showed up again. Just may be, I won’t have to shoulder all this life’s shit alone.