Saturday 2 April 2016

Solo living/traveling for the first time

I have been recommending living alone or travelling alone to almost everyone for last some time. I learnt, not in an exactly subtle way, that it can change you as a person.

I have not lived at home for more than a decade and a half. I have wandered around the country for this long, first for studies and then for my job. Living away, without your parents, causes you to grow up fast. And yet, I don't think I grew up and understood myself till I landed in firangland (London to be precise) for 4 months in 2014 and realised that I hardly knew a soul there.

I moved to London for a secondment. Before that, wherever I had lived, there was extended family or a structured system of college and hostel or just friends. I had always traveled with friends or family. In London however, I knew some people - old friends that I had not met in years and looked forward to meeting. There was work, well structured system, good mentors and nice colleagues. Again some new, some I knew from before. And there was also a sense of immense loneliness. 

I had left my home, friends and hubby behind and first few days in a new office are always boring. I missed the cats. 

I felt lost for a while, and then slowly, one day at a time, I found myself.   

Since there wasn't always someone to join me, I traveled alone. First I went to the well known places (being an Indian girl and having been taught to tread carefully everywhere) and then I went to the not so well-known. I spent days walking in the parks and colourful markets of London and discovering.

I realised I was not shy.
I learnt that I liked crazy jewelry, food from almost everywhere, wine and cheese and street art. 



I made new friends who knew nothing about old me and never bothered suggesting that I should not do something, or that a thing or act is so unlike me. Without the preconceived notions of who I should be and what I should behave like, I learnt to go with the flow and just whatever pleased me. I lived for myself and learnt to be alone without being lonely.

Beyond that, I learnt to love myself, all over again. Hence, travel alone, live alone, at least once when no once can check on you or suggest that you should not do something or not be somewhere. 

Be new. Live a little again.

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