Yesterday evening, after more than 24 hours, I arrived in France. It’s always the best feeling when someone picks you up at the airport, especially someone who you know and who cares about you. As we were driving along the highway, the sun was beginning to set. I watched the dull blue and pink sky, fading into darkness, the windows of apartments and houses dotted along that familiar skyline of the riviera were starting to sparkle. I felt the breeze in my hair, and I searched for what I was feeling. I couldn’t quite describe it. It’s felt different every time I’ve come back here. But this time was the best. I felt like I had come home. There was no excitement, just pure relief and comfort. Like when you take your shoes off after arriving back at your house – you give yourself permission to relax. I looked over at who was driving me, and I felt that yes: I’d made the right decision. All those fears of not wanting to commit to a place to live, how I clung to the freedom that I had in moving around. Now, I look back at the person I was and I know the change is complete.
I didn’t bother to take a photo while we were driving because I didn’t want anything to distract me from that moment. The next day, after lots of rest and a bit of re-arranging, I managed to walk outside and enjoy the summer weather. It was pleasantly warm, a little humid in the air. Just enough to kiss my skin with the moisture it had been lacking on hours of plane travel. I have never stayed in this area before, so even though I was returning to the same region, there was still something for me to discover. I walked along the main street, noticing bakeries, restaurants and grocery stores. I watched the people as I walked, and I saw how they looked back at me or went about their own business. Somehow I was able to see it. The look in everyone’s eyes. It was the same as mine. Everyone looked a little lost, not sure whether what they were doing was out of habit or out of what they truly desired to do. I suppose that this is why travelling is such a soul cleansing experience. You go to a place where you have no habits, and so you must think differently – it’s a different form of being lost.
And I’m starting to realise that this is not necessarily a bad thing, as a lot of others have led themselves to believe. I’ve met a lot of people in life, but few of them have ever had anything good to say about being lost. Lots more of told me that it’s a necessary part of life. Even more have told me about how uncomfortable it feels. I understand. There were moments in my life when I simply couldn’t stand it. I felt inadequate and alone, my self confidence was shot – I had nothing to show for all the years that I had lived on earth. None of it made any sense, I couldn’t reconcile the past and I was unsure about the future. I was the opposite of those driven, focused, ambitious people that you see succeeding in whatever they do. There were even occasions when I feared that I would leave nothing behind if I died, I’d just be forgotten. I don’t know when it happened, but I think the process was gradual… I started to accept my fears. One by one, I let my big dreams go. I was unafraid to try on the feeling of, well what if I failed? At first, it was scary. My heart would beat faster, and I would start acting out of panic. Depending on the subject, I might have frantically started applying for jobs, calling people, researching the answer to my questions online. After a while, I’d become tired. Not from having done anything physically, but from being exhausted by fear.
I couldn’t fail, I’d think to myself, I had to succeed. I’d pump myself up, only to crash after a short period of time when I realised that succeeding wasn’t that easy. Eventually, I found the answer to that question though. The answer was: so what. So what if I failed? Typical… the answer was another question. But it is one that has slowly guided me to this point in life, and now I consciously walk forward asking myself this often. I ask myself, so what if I fail? If the answer is that I would be devastated, then I stop and question myself. What is it that I really want here? Why is success so important to me, that I am willing to let the fear of failure keep me inside the loop of feeling lost? Feeling disturbed by my own inability to make a decision. The answer to this question directs me where to go. It’s the same question I asked myself that moment I was sitting in the visa office in my home city, the staff member waiting on the other side. She pressed me… there are other people waiting here, you need to make a decision about whether you want to apply or not. All of a sudden, out of the confusion came clarity: I will go ahead with the application. I then watched her from outside of myself, I saw her cut out my photo from the collage and fix it to the application form with glue. I knew that I needed to try, because I knew that I was happy to fail and fail again until I succeeded. There was simply no question about it.
Fear is real only because we make it so, but it is not so simple to remain aware of this at all times. Fear is important, and is there for a reason. We need to figure out if the decision we are going to make is safe or not, and we each have our own unique way of getting there. Normally, it would mean dipping your toes into the water. Sometimes it means diving straight in and taking the consequences. It does not matter which way, as long as you take a step forward with some level of confidence or support… there is nothing that can stop you. Little by little, step by step, we slowly make our way in life. Not everything needs to be a rush, and my journey to France took three years – it was certainly not a rush, although I felt hurried along the way. I’m learning a thing or two about patience, you could say. Time is possibly the thing I fear the most, but yet here I am. I could never have guessed that this is how it would all happen, a few years ago when I began preparing for my application. This was all sinking in for me as I was being driven to my new apartment, and looking at the man who was behind the wheel. He has played a large part in teaching me what patience really means, and that I need not be afraid. I need not be afraid of time, of waiting, of silence and of simply being unsure. So now, I am not lost – I’m simply not letting anyone apart from myself tell me the direction I should be headed.
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