The Lies I Tell
There aren’t too many down sides to a life of slow, nomadic travel, or cool footing, as I like to call it: it’s cheaper, more enjoyable and more rewarding than being a hotfooting tourist, but then there’s leaving.
Inevitably there comes a time when it’s time to go. Maybe your visa has run out, or a work contract is finished, or it’s just time to move on before that comfort zone develops into a rut.
Once the decision is made and plans formulated, the countdown begins, and you see your surroundings with a gentler eye because you start to realize this is ‘the last time I’ll . . .”
Everything you do will become “the last time . . .” It always amazes me the silly things that you feel a slight pang about. Not only because you will miss the mundane, ordinary things you’ve become accustomed to, but because each time you think, “this is the last time . . .” a little shard of reality stabs you and what you will really miss comes bubbling to the surface.
Sure, each place has new experiences, tastes and sights, but what is always hardest to part from is the people. “Parting is such sweet sorrow,” as our mate Shakespeare put it, and it’s that sorrow that stops a lot of people from ever taking off on global adventures. But don’t forget the sweet.
I’ve moved a lot through my life: dragged around, rather than brought up my Mum says. So, I’ve developed some coping mechanisms to help put a sweet spin on the sorrow of parting.
The key for me is to play a trick on myself. I lie. I say that I will see this person, or other within a year. I lie over and over and over until I believe it to be true. This way I never really say goodbye and I always have hope. Hope is powerful. Without hope we can’t go on. Without hope there is no point to anything. So, I cultivate hope, manufacture it even.
As I drive, or fly to my next destination I know there’ll be a lump of sadness in my throat, but I am quick to set my mind to planning my return, or the promise of what is to come and soon the lump is gone. Like magic.
My life is richer, and I am a better person for having met the people on my journey through life. I count these people as part of my life fabric, they are forever interwoven into who I am and who I will become. They are my blessings, always in my heart.
Now, as I prepare to leave another place, I will try not feel sorrow, but smile because of the joy I’m lucky enough to have had, and the promises of the future. But I know the sweetness will always carry bitterness and I will lie again before the day is out.
For more nomadic tales and experiments come see me at Coolfooting where life is a journey not a race.
