Monthly Archives: September 2012

09/5/12

Colour My World.

It hit me just now: the realization that I live in two different worlds.

First is the world I currently live in. Here, my current home is in India. In this country, I wear Ali Baba pants, hop on and off auto rickshaws daily, and brave places that cannot even be called ‘toilets’.  I haggle for everything and bobble my head.  I walk the crowded streets of Jaipur, with a cow passing me every so often so nonchalantly. This is my day-to-day life at present, but in this surreal world, I’m never still. India is only my current stop. This is a world where I’m travelling constantly to new and wondrous places. Meeting new people from all over the world. Experiencing new languages and cultures. This is life I currently live.

Second is the world I left behind. The world as I knew it back in Vancouver, Canada. Where I grew up. Went to school. Had friends, family, and a job that I loved. Sometimes, I close my eyes and try to remember a regular day for me in that world: I slam the snooze on my alarm and groggily shoo my dog out of my bed as I get ready for school. Here I wear jeans, a nice scarf and pea coat, paired off with a pair of black boots. Standard UBC fashion. I race other transiting students out of the skytrain, down the escalator to get first in line to the direct bus to my school campus every morning and hit a couple z’s on the bus ride there. I hurry to my classes, maybe see a friend during break. On weekends I drive to work. I have a permanent layer of chlorine on my skin. Sometimes I walk. Go for a run in the rain. Tumblr. Cram for midterms.

You know, after reminiscing a normal day for me in my world from a year ago, I’m not so sure which one is more surreal – the one then or this current world of mine. There are a lot of spaces in that old world of mine where I have a ton of time I just spent… procrastinating. Daydreaming about this world now. Even though I have a lot more free time abroad (that’s with my fair share of lazy days too), it feels… fuller. That old world is just a flash of events that don’t seem to interlink – as if I was really dreaming that old life and flashing through the mundane bits. There are definitely parts about it that I miss. But more so than that, there is so much more that I want to bring into that old world of mine from this current one. Every day I spend in India is so full of colour (quite literally – the women here wear the brightest scarves and saris) and when I think back to Canada, everything I remember is in hues of grey and blue. Did I really spend all that time cooped in my room? Why didn’t I go out more? Make use of my time? Get to know my own city?

I often think about the day I return to Canada. November 28th. I wonder how I will feel. How I will see the city. My job. My school. My home. There’s a part of me that’s afraid to go back to that old world – afraid that all of the colour I’ve soaked in this year will fade away with the Vancouver rain. I’m afraid that I will find everything the same as I left it.

I don’t want to see it that way. I feel right now, these are two different worlds that belong to me, but they are very much detached from each other. No one in Canada can really know the people I’ve met or the things I’ve experienced out here just like my friends here haven’t a clue about my life back at home. I’m afraid that when I go back, I’ll feel so detached from that world after experiencing this one.

If that old world is in a protective bubble, I stepped out into this new world eight months ago. I don’t want to just go back inside. I want to pop the bubble. I want the colours of this world to seep into my old one. I want my worlds to merge.

So I hope that when I fly back to Canada, I will see everything with new eyes – as Vancouver is only the latest destination in my travels. A new colour in my life.

09/1/12

First Step.

Today is September 1st, 2012. I am sitting alone in the guest house canteen in Jaipur, India waiting for my breakfast. An omelette, two pieces of toast, and a fresh plate of mangoes and bananas. The weather outside is hot and sunny – a complete 180 degrees from when the monsoons hit the city only a few days ago.

Sometimes, I can’t believe I’m here.

I began my journey abroad on January 26th, 2012 when I drove down to Seattle, USA with my mother to catch a solo flight to Oslo, Norway. I left behind everything I knew – my family, my friends, my job and school – in my home of Vancouver, British Columbia. To this day, the most terrifying and heart-wrenching experience I’ve had has been the moment when I left my mother through the airport security check in Seattle. From that point on, my life changed entirely. In the span of eight months, I have been to sixteen countries on three separate continents – witnessing the wondrous Northern Lights in Tromso, Norway to weaving through the dusty ancient streets of Marrakech, Morocco. Never in my dreams would I have imagined that I have would have done so much this year. And I’m still not done yet!

To commemorate the memory of surreal life this year, I got a tattoo on my left foot: Wanderlust.  My favourite word. I had wanted to get this done for a long time. The pain I went through to get this inked into my skin is something I hold sacred. The faces of all of the people I had met and the things I had experienced came rushing back to me and all I could do was smile (I’m pretty sure my friend and the tattoo artist thought I was crazy). It was as if at that moment, it was not ink but all of these precious memories that were being etched into my skin. It is a permanent memento of this amazing year and for many more travels to come.

So today is September 1st – at least 12.5 hours ahead of Vancouver that is. People are heading back home from their summer jobs and trips, ready to roll into a new school year. It’s surreal knowing that I won’t be joining them.  A year ago, I was in my old room wondering just what 2012 would hold for me. Now I’m in my room in India pondering the same thing.

So I look at my foot.