31.12.14

I have not written anything years, both professionally and personally. I blame it on lack of motivation and pure laziness. No valid excuses, really.  I had, however, promised myself I will document this journey to serve both as a record I can look back to and to assuage the fear that I have – that I am not just rusty or lacking in practice, but have actually forgotten how to write.

I started this trip with a plan to take half the year off and see most of Europe. In particular, I was hoping to cross off "witness the Aurora borealis" and see most, if not the whole of Spain. I didn't have a concrete plan - just a rough idea and a framework on the first month - while I still had travel mates. After that, when I am on my own, I was going to just wing it. 

In roughly less than three months, I sifted, packed, put away, threw, gave out about 8 years worth of my life in NZ in preparation for the trip.  In my mind, I had everything sorted out - but perhaps my subconscious was not so sure.  When it was barely a month to go, I started having panic attacks. It sounds like an exaggeration now, but at that time, it felt like I was either going to explode internally or my heart was going to stop pumping midway.  Occasionally,  it would palpitate, hard and fast..if I try not to think about it, it goes away, like it never happened. Until the next time it resurfaces.

The only other time I felt this was when I was so beyond stressed when I started a new job. I knew then, I was getting stressed from all the things that I needed to do, things I thought I should accomplish before I go. It didn't help that I was going through something deeply personal. I had doubts, fears, hesitations - I ran them all in my head - and I also have sensible answers for everything that came up - but physically, the stress was making itself felt.  I was going to halt my everyday, normal work-home-play life for 6 months of travel, adventure, fear, uncertainty, new places, strangers, no salary and the unknown. I knew though that I cannot back away from this - the one thing I don't ever regret in my life is travelling - and I would never forgive myself if I don't do this. So I shoved down the mixture of anxiousness and fear that kept trying to surface and resolved to enjoy the journey.