It is absolutely crazy to me how much my mindset has changed over the last few months… how can you possibly be ‘over’ traveling? Perhaps its just a bad day, or maybe I just need a day off? When you spend your life rebelling against structure, against routine, against normality, against the 9-5… and then you travel and its all so incredible at first. It changes you and expands your mind and you learn so much about who you are and about the world and its people… am I strange to grow tired of it? Perhaps its because I am alone or maybe its because I don’t have disposable income to do all the things I would like to do. The fact that I have to budget, to make cuts, stay in the dingier places, forgo a meal here or there or maybe its simply because I’m growing up?

It happened to me when I was about 7/8 months into my Vietnam trip as well… I was done I wanted comfort so I changed my flight I went home early and once again a few weeks in, my mindset snapped back to its former itchy footed self. I hated home, I hated the routine, I wanted freedom once more. So perhaps too soon, I packed my bags again and departed for Australia. Now, once more I find myself six months in back at that very same point… not happy, not fully satisfied. Jesus, I am hard to please. I’m at all the tourist spots, standing before these iconic buildings and sites that I’ve seen on TV, these incredible beaches and viewpoints that I’ve circled on my map as a teenager and torn out the pages of my travel books. I take my pictures for Instagram, I express my awe but its not quite right… I’m not really appreciating it; it does not excite me like it once would have had. I’m lonely, the bane of every solo travellers existence.

I’m nearly 25, I want a career, I want a group of friends around me, I want to decorate my own little space, I want a local coffee shop and a local pub. I want some pocket money to be able to go to that gig at the weekend. I want a two week holiday in Spain or France. I want a boyfriend. I want to learn how to cook a proper meal, to invite my sisters for dinner at the weekend, to go for a day out with my Mam, to plan another cycle trip with my Dad. How am I back here again, one year on? How have I not learned? Australia is an incredible place but I moved too soon, I do not want to work in a bar here and get hammered every night, I do not want to hop from place to place like a tourist. I want to build a life, here, home, somewhere…I want structure. How things have changed. Once again I rushed into something, made a decision with my heart not my head. That fear of falling behind, of all my friends growing up, settling down before I even figure out who I am or what I want to do. This gnawing feeling constantly leads me to make rash decisions. To book that flight before I’m ready. So afraid I will waste it all.

I’ve learned so much about myself on my adventures and finally I can proudly say I like who I have become. It does not bother me to go out and have lunch or dinner alone, to sit in a movie theatre, to join a club, to be the first to say hello … I am content with myself. But the time has come that I no longer want to be alone, I want to be surrounded by people. For a girl who has come from a huge family, when your aunties are like your second mammy’s and your cousins are like your brothers and sisters… I always thought it was too much as a teenager and I wanted away. Now finally I can appreciate what I had. After five years away and alone I can officially say that I am an independent woman, capable of anything, reliant only on myself… but what if I don’t want to be…where’s the fun in that? What are all these wonderful experiences when you cannot share them with someone? What is that funny/embarrassing moment when you have no one to turn to and laugh about it with? It is not a sign of weakness not to want to be on your own…

I am still not quite the free spirited, fearless, dungaree clad hippy I long to be, but I am getting there. Fear still gets me. And I still can’t find a decent pair of dungarees. But I have time and who’s to say I have to do it the hard way, on my own in a foreign country. I think I deserve a break, a little support system to help me on my way. So I’ve made a decision, I’m starting again, I’ve fucked up but have had such a wonderful time doing so that I’ll never regret it. I’ve travelled a good chunk of the world in the past few years. Yet often it feels like by choosing to travel that I am failing, falling behind. Yes I am 24 and still working shitty jobs, bouncing from place to place, not yet carving out a career for myself and that panics me frequently, but then I look back on what I’ve done in the past two years since graduating and I have not wasted a moment of it. Canada, America, France, Portugal, Spain, Vietnam, Budapest, London, Australia, Cambodia, the Philippines, Edinburgh, Indonesia…

For now the time has come to take a step back and get back on the right path. I’m going to go home to Ireland for a year, I’m going back to college to do a video production course. And it feels right. I think I could really be good at this with a little training. I need a year, to sort my head out, to be around my friends that I have grown up with that I have known my whole life, I want a flat with cute cactuses, arty wall hangings and scented candles, to be able to attend the family functions, the birthdays, the dinners, the weddings, to visit my Grannies, to treat my Mammy to brunch. To do the normal things, the stuff I never even considered that I would be missing out on. I have been away on and off for the last five years and I think, well I hope this time I’m ready to not live out of a suitcase for a little while. Then when May of next year comes about I hope I will finally be able to find my way in this world.

Please do not judge me, I have not failed, I have not given up, I am trying its just going to take me a little longer to get there, but I swear I will get there… in the end.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” – Theodore Roosevelt