I don’t really have an acquit to go on foot alone anymore, and I miss it.
I miss the seasons when I’d bar in for a soaring and let my eyes gad about around the staying area at the gate, trying to conjecture who my station-mate would be. I always hoped I’d make a dear companion, yet still asked for a window station, so I could stare out the window instead of having an unwanted conversation if my neighbor turned out to be a dud, which is what usually happened. I always got paired with the most unappealing colleague, one whose material substance mass — or, worse, smell — would spread more than the arm quiescence into my district. Even then, it was something to scrawl about, to chuckle 0ver silently.
The best conversation always turns out to be the dialogue you have with yourself.
When you’re alone, every instant is an nick of duration for something exciting to happen. There’s nearly always space for one more, but usually not for two.
The first duration I traveled alone, I flew to London and took the Eurostar to Paris, where I was studying abroad. It was a transformative two-sixty minutes trail ride because when I woke up, it was abruptly snowing and everyone was talk French. When I ran my belongings through safety at Gare du Nord, I ignorantly dropped my passport, only to have a foreigner peck it up for me. The kindness of strangers shines through when you’re freed from a set clan of friends, marking you as one of their own. When you’re alone, you belong to everyone.
There are other perks of being a ring of one. Like stopping to take a photograph without construction anyone wait. Creating your own guidebook on your own whim. Eating wherever and whatever you’d like without a controversy. You can go on foot away any seclusion and realize that sometimes it’s nice to keep unmoved and just observe.
Who am I, limitless in this from abroad environment? Maybe I’m a traveller. Maybe I’m a incomprehensible passerby. Or maybe I’m just another somebody keen for connection. Just like everybody else.
The second duration I flew solo, I went to Hong Kong with a duffel bag and checked into the Geo-Dwelling Fãªte hostel. My space was the size of a jail cell, but it had everything I needed. I was free to go and come as I pleased. I wandered the incorporated town alone and I felt like I was trapped in someone’s dream, or in a movie, or in a whole creation where I was incapable of being seen.
The next break of day, I woke up, got my hair washed, and ate fried shrimp balls on a rod with balmy sauce — all for less than two dollars. I spent the quiescence of the day roving around Lan Kwai Fong, stopping to eat dainty bleb tea, then an egg acidulous, then public way-diction shark fin soup with a BBQ chicken leg. I went to New Toilet-table for dinner and reflection about the Mary Douglas work, Purity and Peril, wondering why anyone (myself included) would want to eat in a eating-house that had a bathroom topic. Curiosity, I conjecture, is what lured me in.
Afterwards, I continued to carry down my summer sandals, my eyes growing tired from the flashing neon lungs of the incorporated town at obscurity. When I returned to my pygmean quarter, I found the possessor of the hostel, a bug-eyed woman named Miss Kitty, staying up to tell me with affect that my female parent had called. I thanked her and went to my space. When I started to sun-dial dwelling, I realized that a few more hours of worrying until a break of day entitle wouldn’t murder my female parent. I slept more thoroughly that obscurity than ever.
Traveling alone is so underrated. Is it because we are so desperate to stay coupled, afraid to be on our own and make our own decisions? Do we need other nation to validate our advantageous seasons?
We shouldn’t. We — and by “we” I mean “I” — should work that ticket to that incorporated town or isle or political division that we always wanted to visit. I shouldn’t wait for anyone. I won’t wait for anyone to tell me that it’s okay or that they want to go too or that they have a place for me to stay. I’ll just go.
