It has been over a month since I finished my cycle from London to Istanbul and the Adventure Blues have kicked in and let's face it, it was inevitable. How could anyone stay upbeat when one day you are travelling Europe and then suddenly you are back to normality? I thought I would write a blog post about what I like to call the adventure blues.
I awake once again for another day of work, pouring pints for the locals, having the same conversations about tall tales of memories of their lives. It doesn’t feel long since I was having my own adventures but I am back to normality and it sucks. I am so unmotivated, I just seem to be waking up, going to work and then going back to bed. I feel kind of empty like I have lost all excitement and mystery in my life and now I am back to old routines and the usual strains of life and I start to wonder how am I ever going to get back into the flow of normal life when an adventure has completely opened my eyes.
After months on the road, I am completely and utterly skint. I am scrapping enough to eat and pay rent and it’s awful but the adventure that made me bankrupt is still totally worth it. Despite my depressing bank balance and panicking about paying rent I still just keep dreaming about being back on the road.
When on the road, cycling along with just my thoughts, I promised myself I wouldn’t get back into old habits and bad routines. I had millions of things I wanted to do and so many things I would love to see, I had made a plan on the road of how I would like to live. Fewer hours working, more time exploring, more time to be creative and form a life I would love to live. But only a few weeks in I have dropped into the same routines and the same way of life I promised I would snap myself out of.
We all know that one person who will talk all day long about their holidays or adventures and quite normally it drives the person listening to a bored gaze and an occasional nod to confirm they are trying to listen. People simply don’t care unless they can relate, I have to control myself to not be that person because in reality all I want to do is talk about the world, the things iv seen and all the crazy adventures I have been on. Muting myself is hard but necessary to keep others sane.
I have days where these feelings come about and I feel so down, but on other days (like today) I have a boost of optimism. I have a new job, I am meeting new people, I won’t be skint forever and hell I might not be on the bike but there are so many things happening that are exciting! I should never get down. This isn’t the end of my life and that was not my last adventure, it's time to look forward to future plans because life has its ups and downs just like being on an adventure.
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