I’m trying to put together a list of things that I need for my trip. The issue is that I know nothing about any of it. I am packing a backpack (and looking for a backpack) for the first time. I have never gone backpacking before, and I guess I’m not really even sure if I am now. I just think that it will be the easiest way to lug my belongings around. At the same time I am open to the option of backpacking. It is beyond scary standing on the outside looking into this whole world of outdoor exploration and trekking across countries. I have never done anything like it. In fact, I have only been on a limited amount of actual hikes in my life. I love the outdoors, but I have been camping for no more than 2 weeks total in all of my years. Yes, that may be more than some people. No, it is not any amount of experience compared to those who grew up enamored by the outdoors. But I will figure it out. Maybe I will love it. Maybe I will hate it and decide that it’s not the way I would like to travel ever again. Despite this, it isn’t how I will be traveling the entire time I am away. This doesn’t change the fact that I need a backpack, a sleeping bag and matt, a sleeping liner that I didn’t know existed and much more. I am about to walk into a whole new world and I need to properly prepare myself. Once again, I’m not really sure of how to do that, but I will figure it out.
I am going to Laos
So, I am going to Laos in about a month and a half. I have never traveled anywhere alone. I am flying into Vientiane where I will meet a staff of the volunteer accommodations that I will be staying. For 10 weeks, through IVHQ, I will be volunteering in a local village about an hour outside of Vientiane. I will spend my weekdays teaching english in a primary school, and my weekends traveling about and getting to know the community. I am terrified. But I am so, so excited at the same time. I cannot possibly prepare myself for the change of culture. I cannot wait to meet the people and begin to understand their way of living. I cannot wait to learn.
I just turned 21, and while my parents technically could not stop me from going, they do have a say. I think that my mom has come to terms with the fact that I just need to do this, to satisfy some part of myself that can only be cured through exploration and adventure. She will help me organize as I try to get together the small (especially for me) amount of things that I will pack. She will support. My dad is terrified. He will ask lots of questions and make sure that I am safe. Realistically, I think this will be the first time in my life that I have been somewhere/doing something that my dad would not be able to help me if I were to get into a sticky situation. That kills him. And of course it is scary, but it’s part of the reason that this is something I have to do.
I am terrified to land in a foreign country and not know where to go. I am scared there won’t be much english translation and that no one will take me seriously. I’m nervous about meeting the other volunteers, and that after a day I will realize how incredibly unprepared I actually am. I am terrified to be alone. But that is the exact reason that I have to. The reason I want to. There is so much out there that I have yet to discover. That I have yet to even comprehends exists in our world today. I cannot wait to get to explore, all on my own or with people that I’ve just met. I can’t wait to learn about the different cultures and what the people of Lao are like. The more I learn about this incredible place, the more I wish time would pass until I board the plane. Oh yeah, I’m also nervous for the plane ride. My goal is to sleep and to write. Maybe I’ll make a list of what I consider important at the moment and what I expect, so I can compare it to after. It’ll be okay. There’s no way that it couldn’t be considering I will be on a plane to the other side of the world.
I will not truly understand how incredible this is going to be until I am there. I think the point of all of this is that I have wanted this for a long time, but it always seemed so unrealistic, so untenable that it was just a thought. Now it’s happening, and I can’t wait.
Talitha Koum
Talitha Koum: I breathe
in and out of my mind
each night. A mantra
to keep me sane.
I’m sane, I’m sane, I’m
sane. Please tell me
I’m not insane. I push
through. I keep going.
I go too far. I take it
back. I can never
take it back.
I stare through glass:
a window. I can hear
it breaking. Shattering.
It’s still perfectly
put. Held together by
something stronger,
arguably just as useful.
Talitha Koum: I need to
believe that this is
what it’s made. That
nothing is forever.
That if it hasn’t
worked out, it simply
is not the end.
It is not the end, my
friend. I fear, I doubt,
I walk all about. All
over my mind in which
you have yet to figure
out- how to escape.
Leave me all together.
Leave me for dead,
drowning in the air I,
you, we breathe. Let
me choke, it’s what I
know. A stick, a stone,
words that I can never
swallow and still can’t
seem to get out.
Talitha Koum: I am who
I am. I am figuring it
out. You didn’t see. You
don’t know who I was
before. Before I turned
my world into black
and my blood into gasoline.
You could never have
fixed me. You will never
fix me.
Talitha Koum: I am bigger
than this. I am bigger than
being bound by my own
dreams. I am greater than
only letting myself have one
thing, when there are so
many somethings floating
around.
Talitha Koum: I am worth
more. I will swim through
the sky and chew before I
swallow. I will learn every
crevice and every creek of
every mountain I will climb.
I will climb mountains.
Talitha Koum: Little girl
rise.
Here I Come
I am 21 years old. I am an incredibly anxious being and one of my main goals in life is to experience other cultures by immersing myself as much as possible. I have wanted this for years and years and it has been a – foreign – thought, seemingly impossible, unrealistic, improbable. I have been saving, slowly but surely, for the last sixth months for a trip that I am sure will change my life. How could it possibly not? I am going to be in a completely new world with people who speak other languages and may think that I look funny. I am going to be in a completely new land with vantage points I never even thought to exist. I am going to be within a currency that requires a great deal of math and a food market that will ignite every one of my taste buds with unfamiliarity and a severe sense of spice. I am going to be in Laos. I am terrified and I have never been more excited at the exact same time. I am going to lose myself in foreign territory on a quest that is sure to result in the introduction of my new, beloved self.
just a beginning
This post is just the very beginning. In an ideal world, I will use this webpage to express myself while in pursuit of engaging with many passions of mine. In an ideal world, this blog, if you will, will hopefully motivate me to continue. To continue writing, taking photos, traveling, and somehow incorporating some sense of style and design into them all, including fashion.
My favorite quality about myself is that I am weird. I tell this to people and I think they take it as me fishing for a compliment or trying to achieve sympathy. I mean it in no such way. I am a bizarre human being, and I think that is exactly how it is supposed to be. First of all, I don’t know how much normal is of a thing. However, if such an idea does exist in this reality we share, it sounds pretty fucking boring. I personally do not want to be categorized in with normal. Despite this, I do often wish for ‘‘normal people problems,’ for my young adulthood has been filled with anxiety and depression, addiction and self-destruction.
I went on a mini tangent. I’m back now. This webpage has been created in order to keep inspiration in tact. This webpage is here to help me keep moving forwards. Maybe this webpage will even teach me to let go. I believe that I will get more out of it than I know, and maybe you can as well. Feel free to explore alongside me, I’d love some company.
Learning to Live Again 