life

Learning to Remember

/ Sloan / 1 Comment

Waking up early is in my blood. Struggling to put my already damp sports bra on to my already sweaty body I remind myself where I am: Cat Ba Island. Skipping down the 6 flights of stairs I curse the broken elevator. Walk to the street and pick up the pace.

 

The streets are busy with locals. Motorbikes zoom to drop off kids at school, men at work and women selling coffee, I run. Ignoring the calls for a taxi or motorbike ride I run. To the beach, to the ridge where I am alone with my islands. My islands rest and wait and absorb the shock of the waves that lap them from the great sea. I’m alone as I stretch my tired muscles, as I climb the stairs I had just descended and as I round the corner and sit with a small Vietnamese woman who tells me hot coffee is just 10,000 dong. I sip my twenty-five cent brew and remind myself again and again.

Lost (but okay)

/ Sloan / Leave a comment

Some people travel to ‘find’ themselves. Others to ‘escape’. Many to ‘view’ the world from a new angle, a new taste, or smell.

I’m not finding anything, just finding myself more lost. I haven’t escaped anything. I am seeing the world and myself differently.

More lost than ever. I’m wandering [aimlessly] I love [despising] the confusion and [un]certainty of every choice I make.

 

 

Shoulding–We All Do It

/ Sloan / 4 Comments

Okay. I know is just wrote a post about slowing down, taking in each moment and enjoying where I am while I’m living it. But after much thought and meditating on it I think I’ve found the source of why I have a hard time staying where I am and being able to enjoy that particular moment. GUILT.

Dictionary.com defines guilt:

Guilt:

noun

1.

the fact or state of having committed an offense, crime, violation, or wrong, especially against moral or penal law; culpability: He admitted his guilt.

2.

a feeling of responsibility or remorse for some offense, crime, wrong, etc., whether real or imagined.  

 

Or a more reliable source, UrbanDictionary.com:

Guilt:

An unfortunate side effect that results from being overly exposed to morality.

I believe that my guilt stems from a syndrome that my friend has named I-should-be-doing-something-more-productive-than-this syndrome. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a pretty lazy person. I love to and often do sit around, drink coffee and read or watch a movie: but in the back of my mind I’m thinking: I should clean my room, I should have done a harder workout, I should write a blog post, I should go for another run, I should be reading about Buddhism instead of this novel, I should I should I should…

 

I should all over myself every damn day. I propose that we all stop shoulding on ourselves. Or at least I’m going to try and stop, you can do what you want, maybe you don’t have this problem and you can tell me your secret. Shoulding is messy, it’s pointless and it doesn’t help anyone with anything. And who’s to say that what I am doing isn’t what I should be doing?

I tend to think of relaxation, non-educational books, general hanging out as a crime of some sort. It somehow, in my 26 years of living, has been defined and ingrained in me as something I think is morally wrong. That itself is so wrong—learning to relax is going to be key in enjoying the next two months of travel.

I’m buckling up, slowing down and telling guilt to shut the hell up and go away. Got any good book suggestions?

Haha

Hehehe