I listened to a song today: „If you can’t say it, write a song about it.“ I am not a singer-songwriter. So I can not write a song. I guess for me it means: „If you can’t say it, write an article about it.“ I don’t know where this text will lead to. It is about saying goodbye.
The hardest thing during a long journey is to let go. I am a nomad, moving around. Thatś all what this life is about. Always moving. Which means I can not stay with people. I also can not stay with them, if I like them. Or even love. I have nothing to offer beside the moment. I might be a magical moment. But moments disappear. You want to stay in this moment, if they are so magical. Hold them forever. But it is impossible. Same with people. Because they are close to you. Closeness. That’s what it is about, isn’t it? But I have nothing to offer, cause I am wandering. Nothing to offer but the moment.
During a trip you often experience strong feelings. I am not talking about abstract feelings like love, sympathy or loneliness. I mean sensations. The pressure in your chest. The burden on your Soda Plexus, because you know the farewell is near and it cords you up tight. Maybe it is pain, maybe it is fear. I don’t know. It is a sensation. As well as the queasy feel in your stomach, which prevents you from getting hungry and makes you feel miserable and weak. And there is also the hardening in your neck, which leads up to your backhead and causes headaches. Abnormal swallows, cause your throat is cord up and your whole body is focused keeping yourself together, keeping your emotions, before they break through at some point, like a wave coming out of the ocean to burst against a rockwall.
It is hard to let this happen sometimes. Especially if you have people around you. People you have to say goodbye to or those kind of persons you just met and with whom you are together, although you don’t know them at all. People in front of which you have to pull yourself together. People you leave behind anyway. Never intimates. At best friends. Short term family members. But the time is missing to create real intimacy. Everything is lacking. You can keep the illusion, that you met soulmates, which you like from the first moment and which become very important for you. But this stays in the moment. And moments pass by. As well as people pass by. This is often me. The nomad.
Every goodbye is hard. The hardest are those, which you see coming. Farewells you actually don’t want. Because you heart is set on somebody. Because you are scared, what will happen, if she is not there anymore. Scared of the emptiness. Because you had this closeness and familiarity, which is missing so often during traveling. Always everything is new. Places, people, countries, languages and love as well. Maybe the most difficult thing is saying goodbye the right way. You can just leave, short and sweet. Maybe the easiest way. You can let go of you negative feelings. Be disappointed, angry and sad. Works well, if you don’t want to miss somebody. Probably the worst advisor as well. This destroys more, than it helps for sure. But should you avoid people from getting close to you then? What do you have then? Nothing.
It makes no sense to stay lonely, just because you are scared of being hurt. Maybe you have control about it that way. It makes you feel safe, but not satisfied at all. It is difficult to leave in mutual affection, cause then you also miss the other one the most. And why should you leave something beautiful? Everything is wrong with farewells. Or maybe everything right. I don’t know it.
After all you end up sitting here again. Alone. With your heart beating faster than normal. The hardening in your neck which is painful. The pressure in your chest, which feels like you would burst every second. And the stomach, who lays insecure in your belly and does not really know what to do.
And then there is something different. Something that is not always there, but sometimes. Hope. When your mind by now understood that it is, like it is. But there is still hope. The hope, who can’t let go. Maybe everything will be alright. Maybe we can spare all this? Not at all.
I want to keep this moment. Once again. Not the nice moment, but this moment. Now. With all its facets. The longer I look at it, the harder it gets, to observe the sensations. Because they pass away. Like every moment passes away. And that is good, although you feel like shit. But it passes away. Same as the pleasant sensations. That is how function. It is hard to experience that, but very important to be able to stand it. Stand it to observe it. Observe it to experience it. And sometimes stand it, to describe it.
On a long journey you will experience stronger emotions than you would have at home. Life is more intense. Sometimes unbearable. I am wondering, if you get used to it or if it burns you out. Tiredness appears. Sleep. That could help. Finding peace. But there is still this feeling of hope that startles you once again, the last resort and just another self-deception that keeps you in your misery.
There are short moments, where you manage to let go. Feeling relieved. Also this is not of permanent nature. But those moments become longer. Maybe a learning process. If you make yourself free, let go of moments and people, just for this short moment, then you feel alive again. Not anymore like dying. To die has a lot to do with letting go. That for sure. Maybe we should start to learn this when we are still alive. And realize that things are not as important as they seem to us.
Traveling is a trump You know, something new is upcoming. New chance? Maybe this is what hope thinks. But it does not matter. Most important, it goes on. And it only goes on, if you say goodbye and start on a new path. The one ……stop. I see this text crippling more and more. And I feel so bad, that I can not get to the point. I thought to end this positive, in the beginning. But to be honest, it is hard to find words for this. No, I feel like shit. Miserable. Positive ending up your ass. At least I could express what I couldn’t before. It stops here. Because I look at it. Observing how I die. And then keep on living, even if I would like to be dead now. But also this moment will pass away.
I just wanted to say, that actually I could be happy, cause there is something new upcoming. And this helps to not feel as shitty anymore. And actually life is very pleased with me. But thats theory. In reality only pain remains, with all its facets. All its emotions. Time for me to move on.
Life is beautiful. In any moment. Even while traveling.
