I'm Doing Something Right I Guess

I'm not good at travel, I always feel like I'm letting somebody down when I go. Because I can never come back and just be 'It's AMAZING, WOW!!! My whole perspective in life has changed!!!' blah blah blah.

My mother, (who worries) is worried about this past behaviour of mine. I've never been the excitable type, but I'm not the type to go travelling like I'm getting some kind of hit.

I'm really emotional and reluctant to leave. Part of this I'm sure is that I am losing my sister to New York while I'm away, I'll probably not live with her again and she will simply be gone when I come back. Another part is that John my coconspirator will have moved to Sydney whilst I'm away, and he will be missed as well.

But I also just miss Melbourne. I've never been able to relate to people who have a desire to leave it. Maybe if you grew up here, I don't know. I find that 'travel broadens you' is fundamentally true, but isn't some silver bullet cure all.

I remember a line from 'In the Lake of the Woods' a prescribed text when I was in year 10 or 11 that read something like 'they moved there as if happiness was a physical place on earth.' which I think many who 'love' travel are prone to thinking.

I also remember in Lisa Pryor's 'Pinstripe Prison' on the lifestyle sale of jetsetting corporate worker's travel experiences 'I think a lot of people who travel want to because they aren't happy where they are.' as in travel is an escape, quite literrarily escapist.

Not so, I. I am also reminded of crappy self help book that's contents is literally on its cover 'it's called a "break-up" because it's "broken"' and think that 'taking a break' kind of implies that you are attempting to fracture or destroy your life by journeying abroad.

This was certainly the case last time I left the country - I literally packed all my life into boxes and within 24 hours had nothing but a passport, a credit card and some pyjama's in a capsule in Osaka.

I'm afraid that this trip will be that trip writ small, that I will have my strange isolated depression that I got in Thailand, where I couldn't force myself out of my hotel room before 1 in the afternoon and then on the pretext of needing to eat.

There is some stuff in my life that needs breaking, but not much. Bad routines I've fallen into. And it will be nice not to have to work. And it will be great seeing all my people's of Japan, whom seldom use facebook, call or think outside the boarders of their own country, whom love me as dearly as I love them.

But I decided to do this trip at New Years, I let them know and gave them my word. My word I take very seriously, but I'm so reluctant to let go of this city, my home.

I love Melbourne, I love its people, I love my life here. I guess if anything my anxiety at leaving even for a relatively short 6 weeks reflects that my home is truly a home and I'm doing something right.