Post-travel blues suck!

No writer has ever made justice to post-travel blues. No one! They could just create a whole music genre based on this itself!

Ashray said this 2 days after we were back and I subscribe to every word.

Post-travel blues suck!

It feels good to see your friends and family again, but coming back is quite a shock. I wouldn’t say a shock with reality – everything we were feeling and experiencing out there was as real as anything else. But a shock with a parallel reality.

When you come back to your previous life, you feel that you’re going back in time. Everything is more or less the same. You feel you have expanded your horizons and broken free from certain aspects of the routine you left back home. But encountering those again starts limiting the views you have naturally let go wild while you were on the road.

In our case, it’s even weirder as we’re not coming back to the same place we used to live in: Dubai. Right now I am in Portugal and Ashray is in India – and this itself makes things so much more complicated. After one full year together 24/7, we are so far apart. But I am so happy that we did this together. I know there is someone out there feeling exactly like I do, someone who I can relate to as well. I was not alone and I shall not be alone.

And we don’t even know where we are going to live next. Everything is open, everything is uncertain. While there is only one thing that I know is 100% true: I WANT TO TRAVEL MORE! And we will. Sooner, rather than later.

 

No one cares about what you did!

I have read this countless times on other travel blogs: no one really cares about what you did in far away places. It’s too hard to relate to and people have their own problems and sources of happiness. And I get that. This is something that didn’t affect me as such, as I wasn’t expecting anyone to ask. And even when people do: how can you put into one conversation all the countries you’ve visited, all the people you have met, all the different ways of life you have observed and somehow experienced? For this, I have the blog.

All those moments of inspiration, of realization and charm feel very far away, and talking about some of them takes part of the romanticism away. I also like keeping some things for myself.

 

“Of course you look relaxed!

You just had a 1 year vacation!…”

Man, I am tired of people telling me that I just did a “1 year vacation”. First of all, I didn’t see it as a vacation. I saw it more as attending a 1 year “school of life” course. A crash course in geography, sociology, anthropology, politics, even culinary arts. Now you tell me what formal degree gives you all of that rolled into one, hmm?!

And secondly, even if I had taken a “1 year vacation” I did it as a fruit of my own work – it wasn’t on Daddy’s money, so let me enjoy what’s rightfully mine! Why the hell not?! All those film shoots under the scorching sun of Dubai had to pay off. All those 15 hour days that ended in migraines because of the computer screen and poor lighting had to be good for something other than accumulating money in my bank account. Saving on the grocery shopping, on the lifestyle and impulse buying… it all paid off!

 

I don’t want to live a mediocre life

Some people have told me that now that I am not traveling in far away places, “I shall go back to reality”. I was living “la vie en rose” until now… “but life shall teach me a lesson” as I go. “Not everything is pink”. Thanks a lot for the profound life lessons, really, as if I didn’t know already!

Do we have to suffer to become more human or solid as people? Since when is whining fashionable? People LOVE to whine. Man… I am Portuguese, so believe me, I know what I am talking about. As much as I love my people, I hate the fact that we are such a whiny society. Complain, complain, complain!… Does that take us anywhere? NO! It doesn’t.

If you’re not happy with your life, make a move. Revolution starts in your own house, in your own personal life. You change, and then the world changes with you. Not the other way around.

 

There’s one thing in life I fear more than anything else: and that is having a mediocre existence. Just passing by without doing much more than what suits me individually. I can’t be friends with people that have no solid values, that don’t care about what’s around them. I have been told more than once that I look silly if I try to “change the world”. But I stand clear on thinking that if we can change our individual worlds first, then we find our place in society and make a better world all together. Living without giving a damn about what’s around you just because you think you can’t make a difference is something I’ll leave for the weak souls.

I might not change the world, but I am not going to stop trying. In the little things. Those little things that everyone can be a part of. Try to be more respectful towards other cultures, races, different values than yours… be open to anything that you weren’t brought up to believe in or like. Your way might not be the right way after all.

And stop complaining and telling those who are happy and have a more positive outlook than yours that life shall slap them in the face one day. Do something to change. Something solid, not some meaningless whining.

I know some people have it easier than others. I know not everyone was born with the same privileges. But I also know that, no matter how deep the hole you’re in may be, there is, more likely than not, at least one way out. There has to always be a way of becoming happier, doing more things that complete you and those around you. Love more, laugh more, LIVE MORE!

 

Let’s not live a mediocre life!