The Weekend Daydream

Ennui is a beach! In today's entry, I tackle my unhappiness and pondering why I travel!

Also my writing's very rusty, apologies for the lack of humor.

Achievement unlocked! Sheena is a legit adult! Sheena received her first paycheck! What shall she do first? I bought donuts for my colleagues. Afterwards I realized that I should've bought food for my family first. But I already bought the donuts so I gave them to my colleagues anyway. 

I made more wrong decisions aside from the donuts. I'm not very good at 'adulting.'

Help meeeee.

Surviving the real world is hard. I wanted to escape for even a weekend. My friend Aireen told me about joining a random road trip to which I agreed to go to! Alas, a traveller is born!

But, after booking flights and organizing road trips, I realized that I was still in this downward spiral of ennui. 

To figure out what was wrong, a lot of times where I look like I'm spacing out when I travel, I am either a. really am just spacing out, or b. thinking. I also still keep a journal with me and have talked to a bunch of people. Here are some of my lightbulb moments! 

Heartbreak

Thanks to movies like "That Thing Called Tadhana" and "Eat, Pray, Love" a lot of people like travelling to move on. Years ago, I saved up enough money and chose fly outside the Philippines for the first time. I chose September, since that was the supposed anniversary with my ex. Did I miraculously move on and forget about my ex during that trip? 

During random times of the day, whether I was in awe of the temples, eating crickets for the first time, I could still feel the storm raging inside my chest. I was extremely upset and was struggling to stay bubbly. My inner self said "What the hell, Sheena! You're in Cambodia! Stop feeling bad already! You're supposed to be happy!" I was a see saw of emotions and was exhausting to stay consistently euphoric. 

Work

A no brainer fact: People take vacations to get away from stressful day jobs. With toxic jobs, going to work every day without a break is like being poured a generous amount of rich black tar. Getting a vacation is like being showered with sparkly spring water, melting away the tar and making me feel oh so light. 

I was especially excited to be in places like the mountains or an island, without wi-fi or Globe signal because it meant that my responsibilities could not reach me if even for just for a while. It meant that I could live life, breathe and just really be in the moment.

My friend Fiel thinks otherwise. He's in love with his job as a teacher and doesn't need the "high" from travelling. Work for him doesn't seem like a chore that he needs to escape from to prevent burnout. I basically went...

Boredom

Life in the city is not as interesting compared to when I'm outdoors, climbing, cliff-jumping, surfing, and pushing my frail body to the limit. At home I usually just read books, watch movies, pretty much doing the cliche activities that introverts enjoy.

One of my recent trips involved a rainy afternoon in the beach. We couldn't risk trekking because the path was too dangerous and muddy. I wanted to walk around town, but there was not much to do there either. We went back to the hotel and just talked. "Let's just chill." Chill? CHILL?!?!

I was extremely uneasy. There's so much to do than just to sit here and just chill! My friend didn't mind doing nothing and later fell asleep. Meanwhile, I was very fidgety, left the room and looked for things to take photos of. I did find this really cool hammock-looking chair that faced the sea.

Why am I doing this?

Don't get me wrong, traveling is a rewarding experience. I bet there are a lot of articles online who can expound on how life-changing it is for them, how it helped them become thankful of what they already have at home, etc. I on the other hand was traveling to escape, to visit a weekend daydream (which also makes a catchy indie band name!)

Instead of taking long-term actions to improve my life, I chose the shorter route of just running away. It's a quick fix that is both costly and not sustainable. It's like getting this broken fence and coating it a fresh coat of paint, instead of actually rebuilding the fence.

I procrastinated actually getting my life on track because I don't know how to, and because it's just easier to escape than to actually face my unresolved issues. 

Sarah Kay, one of my favorite poets mentioned that "you are in a continuous process of becoming." I still haven't fully figured out what my direction should be, nor am I confident enough to say that I finally have my life on track. Right now I mostly do trial and error. Sometimes I got to do great things. A lot of times I end up like Lara Croft.

I had my birthday last month and I still don't know a lot of things. I don't know what the fox says or where is Waldo. I do know this. I won't run away anymore. 

“Not that running away's going to solve everything. I don't want to rain on your parade or anything, but I wouldn't count on escaping this place if I were you. No matter how far you run. Distance might not solve anything.” 

― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore