Getting dumped proper earlier than a solo overland journey from Barcelona to Beijing derailed my bid to rebrand myself as a girl of the world
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It was meant to be a voyage of self-discovery. However two days earlier than I left, my boyfriend dumped me. The self I found was a complete buzzkill.
“It’s not you, it’s me,” he swore, however I used to be crying my 21-year-old coronary heart out within the entrance seat of an Uber as we wove by way of East Fremantle – a panic assault taking part in peekaboo in my intestine.
My driver’s identify was Ricky and he wore an Akubura with hanging corks. Ricky stated I used to be higher off with out the ex. He was proper – unequivocally so. However at that second, my glass was half empty.
A yr earlier, after I deliberate my solo overland journey from Barcelona to Beijing, I used to be sure if I regarded wistfully out sufficient practice home windows and sipped sufficient home-brewed japanese European spirits, I might formally start a rebrand. Neglect the awkward woman hiding behind a thick fringe and meet the brand new me, a girl of the world.
I had dropped out of college and labored two jobs to make it potential – together with a stint squeezing maggots from a dishcloth at an ice-cream parlour – so I'm often hesitant to explain these four-and-a-half months as something however good. However in actuality, I used to be emotionally unhinged.
I largely travelled alone and was excited to get to know myself away from my regular crowd. Disappointingly, I discovered I used to be an individual who would cry in a 14-bed dorm room, set off by a textual content from my ex about cheese and crackers. An individual who would go clubbing in Mykonos with a foul cough to keep away from being alone and who would unload my emotional baggage on to anybody who would pay attention.
I obtained mattress bugs, pneumonia and fleas. I missed an costly flight. I obtained in a number of fights with males who couldn’t maintain their palms to themselves. I blew by way of my funds. I had a bank card for emergencies – however the phrase emergency rapidly widened effectively past its dictionary definition.
Nonetheless, with out query, the most important enemy to my backpacking bliss was myself. My self-pity was tangible. It was syrup and I bathed in it.
I’d like to say I finally had an exciting love affair with a Bolshoi theatre ballerina or that the Gobi Desert single-handedly rebuilt my self-worth with its vastness. However in actuality, I used to be nonetheless a multitude on my flight house from China, cry-watching The Fault in Our Stars from the again of an economy-class seat.
I did discover ways to strike up conversations with strangers and the way to shuffle playing cards the cool means. I met a French man who softly shamed me into loving purple wine and a woman who appeared to know nothing concerning the world exterior the USA apart from the way to respect each second she spent exploring it.
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I spent a number of weeks travelling with a Swiss German accountant whose defining options have been his love of techno and kindness. Though utterly platonic, we swapped rings produced from bathroom paper and had a faux marriage ceremony on a sleeper practice. Whereas he didn’t educate me the way to heal a damaged coronary heart, he did stroll me by way of my first snow combat.
I returned house and was nonetheless simply a clumsy woman from Perth struggling to deal with a breakup. Solely with passport stamps, cool tales and bank card debt.
Not everybody will get to spend months accountable to no one, sleeping in a brand new nation each second night time. I'm grateful I obtained the possibility and possibly by no means will once more. However studying to deal with romantic rejection is actually arduous. No quantity of gallivanting might have carried out it for me, a reality conveniently left off the brochures at Flight Centre.
It’s been nearly a decade and my stylish worldwide rebrand continues to be within the works. Is anybody up for mountain climbing to Machu Picchu?
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