When I got off the bed, I went to talk to the father and brush the baby's head when it turned and was suddenly an adult. I shudder with disgust and embarrassment at the whole thing and quickly exclaimed, "I thought you were a baby!"
"Yeah, so do my parents!"
It wasn't until I repeated this part of the dream to my mother did I even think this may have had something to do with our relationship but then dream continued. The 23-year-old girl baby seemed like a beautiful, confused, and lonely lost soul. For some reason my heart reached out to her and when her parents were gone I went up to her and offered my friendship. I told her I knew what it was like to be messed up in the head and not living a quote, "normal," life. Her response looked like someone who had been relieved of the heaviest burden, like a bullet missing their head by a couple centimeters.
I assume this would have begun a friendship in dream land, like the few special ones I have in real life, based on the mutual understanding of "hey, I'm fucked up, you're fucked up--let's be pals."
So what does this have to do with travel or my life? What does it mean?
Like I said, when I told the first part of the dream to my mother she asked if I was mad and feeling like the family was treating me like a baby. I honestly don't think this is the case and I haven't felt that way in a long time or ever in my life really. What unnerved me most was the way she went from a baby to a 23-yr-old blonde who seemed damaged. Even stranger was the odd formation of our friendship--like we were connected.
To dream of a baby usually signifies something pure and innocent within yourself, so the fact that within a blink the baby was gone and grown made me wonder. And why 23? I suppose 23 is the one age in my twenties I'd like to be again (even though I'm still in my twenties).
I've thought a lot about age lately. In fact, for the first time in my life, I'm aware of my age.
For so long it felt like I was ageless and for many reasons too. I've always been an old soul and for much of my life I spent with people older than me and even dated older men. I was usually the younger person in the crowd and was always given shit about it (I'd love to kick all of these people in the ass now). Because of all this, I spent most of my life wishing I was older. That was until recently.
It's only been in the last year or so that I've started noticing some bodily changes but as far as I was concerned, I still had no age to go with my mind or body. Now I'm in backpacking through Europe, exhausting myself from chasing dreamworlds, and doing it all with a backpack that contains my life. I'm running on too much drink, eat, and not enough sleep. I'm not only trying to keep up with the younger 20-somethings I meet, but also the younger version of myself who had always dreamed of doing this. When I was sixteen I wanted to drive west to California in a '69 Mustang and go to art school. No matter how cool it may sound, it'd be a lot different if I did it today, 10 years later.
The same is true in regards to this trip. Sure, I get along with most people I've met and have met some kindred spirits, as well as folks my age or older, but I still feel in the minority.
I know, I know. I'm not old. This is not a cry for help or a plea for whining. This is just something that has finally hit me and I have to work through it because the fact is, I am in the minority and frankly, I don't know how to look at myself in this position.
Let's talk.
Most women my age (and all of my friends), live in houses or apartments. Some are married, some have kids, some have both, some are in relationships, some are dating, and those who are single have a career or are working on their career but still have their own place to call home. I'm the only woman I know living out of a backpack with no home or car or significant other to return to.
And that's fine. I chose this life. My priorities are different. I'll get to those "things" but first I have to do my thing . But none of this changes time and no matter what, December will come and I'll grow another year older.
Along with that, the slight glow that still lingers on my skin will fade, it will only get harder to lost weight, and the cellulite and sagging will only continue. I do think my tits will stay the same only because I'm not sure they could go any further south. My face will only gain more lines and I'm sure my lifestyle choices don't do anything for the purple under my eyes.
Most of this is simply biological. I knew it would happen and when I was younger I would look eagerly at my older friends and tell them they were crazy for letting all of it get to their heads. I meant it too. They were beautiful and only grew more beautiful every day. But they had some "security" I don't have now that I enter that period of my life.
I still haven't met someone who makes me want to do cartwheels and don't even get me started on sex! Some days I walk around thinking I'm a goddess while other days have me cringing at the thought of a penis.
My uncertainty about this part of my life suffers more when I think about the fact that I'm getting older and don't have the body I did ten, five, even two years ago. I grow bitter too when I think about those who had the chance to have that body ten, five, even two years ago and didn't appreciate it. Bastards! They had the best years of my thighs!
It doesn't help my sex appeal either now that I'm living out of a backpack and have become very homely. I'm not sure I'll ever want to, or be able to, wear heels again and I don't think the sneakers with my pinkie toes sticking out are a sexy substitute.
On top of it, this trip has really lowered my censor and I'm not sure I have one anymore. I realize this as my sense of humor becomes more macabre and when I have no qualms with "going there," thus making an entire room feel uncomfortable. I've become a younger version of Betty White. The difference is that it's cute when she hits on a gorgeous 22-year-old and looks like sexual harassment when I do. Granted, most of what I say is out of jest but I can't help but wonder if maybe I'm not allowed to do this anymore. I don't want to be the perverted older woman in the room!
It's strange--I've never worried about this before. I used to be the one on the other side of the flirtatious comments and now I've become a lad with the attitude of a 40-year-old horny mother.
It was all just so bizarre and the point at which I realized all this was very surreal. I'm not 16, 21, or 25 anymore. Nor is the person I was at those ages.
So when I offered this fictitious dream baby woman a friendship because I figured I could relate to being messed up in the head I was speaking from reality. I feel like an outlier living in an equation I can't help solve.
And believe me, I want to solve it. Like the rat in Ratatouille who wanted to cook. But what can I do or say when I don't even now how to live my own life properly? So many people say they admire or envy me but after all this, what will I have?
I'll have lessons and stories. But who will I share these lessons and stories with?
I have a family who loves me and am even blessed enough to have some friends who treat me like family but I feel so far removed from their lives. I feel like when I landed in Dublin five months ago, I landed in outer space and I look at the Earth with so much love and so much confusion, feeling for the fire in the comets that whizz by for anything to touch, even if it burns.
I apologize for the lack of posts in the past few weeks. Travel has kept me extremely busy and I've had to choose between sleeping, eating, writing, or exploring undiscovered (name here) city. The priorities begin with exploring city, possibly eating, some sleep, then writing longhand in a notebook during the long bus and train rides between countries which rarely have wifi.
But I can honestly say it's probably a good thing I haven't been publishing my thoughts as they haven't been so good lately.
On top of my concerns over vanity, my trip has dived into its own inevitable evolution and the reasons I went on this trip and why I remain this trip are vastly different. In fact, I'm not even sure I remember why I set forth on this wondrous and hazy adventure to begin with and some days I can't seem to comprehend why I stay either.
Sometimes people ask me, "so, have you found what you came here for?" and "What have you learned?"
I've learned that the world is shit. Or as my mother would say, "the moon shines the same allover the world." The difference is that my mother uses this phrase to explain love and family. When I was nervous about going to China years ago she said, "Helena, the moon doesn't shine brighter over America or Japan or China. The moon shines the same all over the world. A mother loves her child in America the same as a mother loves her child in China."
I've used this too many times to count because it always seems to fit and always calms my heart when I begin to feel lost. The idea is that we're all human. We're all equal. People are people allover the world and I would add that we're all fucked up too. Or at least, this is what I've taken away from this. We love, we hate, we go out for beers and coffee with friends to talk about life and heartache and all those little things that make us silly and real.
But what happens when we begin to hate more and we stop going out with friends for beer and coffee? What happens when the conversations about love, life, heartache, and all those silly things that embarrass us and make us human end?
I think we're experiencing what happens when those things end now.
Have you ever noticed how blurred the line is between songs that we find sexy and songs we find sad? We're like erased people in a drawing living in-between the undefinable lines. There's no balance. There's no clarity. We're lost and have lost each other.
When I was in Berlin, I found a picture of some SS men "taking a break from mass murder" (read the caption). I posted it on Facebook and wrote that though I won't compare the tragedies of today to the tragedies of the past, when people ask how so many people turned their heads to look the other way, I urge you to ask yourself how you're still comfortably laughing and turning your head from the genocide and brainwashing that still occurs today.
I brought this up again during one of my down days of travel in Budapest and the response wasn't so pleasant. One girl literally got up from the table saying, "This is depressing." Before she left, she brought up the good point that a lot of good in the world is simply ignored.
So my thought is... Why the fuck is this still the case? The world claims to have advanced so much. To be so modern. To have learned from the past. As far as I can tell, this is bullshit. We're not smarter, we're just a new kind of dumb.
Not all of us of course. There is some good and love out there in the world but it's like an endangered animal we've killed off for our own selfish and broken benefits. There are people trying to preserve it but like most non-profits, they're suffering from a lack of support and funding.
I look at my own country for example. My very own worry-wort of a mother feels better about me being here in Europe, as a single female, because at least she doesn't have to worry about me being shot. Facts are facts and the fact remains that there is just less violence over here.
Another fact is how many countries have "Americanized" their banking systems and have been damaged economically because of it. As one Dutch friend said, "We don't need billions of dollars! We wouldn't have anything to do with so much money anyway."
Just as I wanted to ask myself what the USA would need with billions of dollars for I already knew the answer: Military defense. Guns. I wonder what kind of country we would have if we put as much money, effort, and fighting into our education system. We're certainly not the happiest country in the world, nor the healthiest. We're currently at war (although have we ever left?) and our USD is low compared to the rest of the Westernized world.
What if we, as a country, as a society, shifted our priorities?
I realize I began this post on questions of age and vanity and am now talking about how we need to get our priorities together. Let me explain.
People tell me to leave all this cosmetic nonsense back in America--my age, my looks, and all the bullshit I believe about them. But this American mentality is, for some insane reason (which I can't fathom), seeping its way into the mentality of the world (even though they all look down on us).
Also, America is my home. It's where I was born--a thing I'll never be able to change. Just like my tits. They're attached to me so I'll have to get used to them at some point. But as far as the world is concerned, both America and my tits aren't that supported.
Why the hell do I keep talking about my tits and America in the same context? You wanted to know what I've learned.
I guess because at the end of the day, we're having fewer conversations about important things. We're getting up from the table or changing the channel when the topic doesn't appeal to us. Though I have an incredible support system, the world/media/society are still telling me I should look a certain way and live a certain way and telling me that that is what's important.
So I try to talk about it but no one can hear me over the loud electronic music and frankly, I don't think anyone cares. I thought I would travel and meet people who want to change the world but I find most (NOT all) travelers are here to mostly party and get wasted.
And I don't blame them. I suppose I was the same when I was younger. And why not? It seems Uncle Sam or whoever is watching us wants us to turn off our minds anyway. So hell! Break open the whiskey! Turn up the music! Let's rage until the sun comes up!
And then I miss my train and laugh and say "Oh shit," then apologize and the person at the counter laughs with me like they understand. They've had those days too. They're got the times wrong, got off the wrong exit, dated the wrong person, worried about the same wrong things too. I'm human. Just like them.
Maybe it's me. Maybe it's the world. Maybe I'm really hard on both.
I met a Hungarian man and he said, "You want to change the world!"
I said, "I know!"
Then he laughed and said, "You can't!"
But you can try...
So I set off to see the world and figure out an answer to a question I'm not really sure of.
I've leaned:
There is some good in this world. There are people who will see you fall and help you get back up.
That there are some people out there who will look skin deep and find the beauty inside of me and perhaps even find my outside beautiful as well.
That despite all the crap people say about America, deep down, they still like us (for the most part).
I do not like electronic/house/techno/drums and bass music and I need to stop tagging along with the mostly younger folks and be content with staying behind and being an old "fuddy duddy" but more importantly, be content with being alone which looks like I'll be for yet another birthday.
I get high off good conversation, good wine, and good food with good friends and I get cranky when it's not happening. There are people willing to do this with me but they're rare gems scattered about the world and I need to appreciate them. This made me realize...
That I love my friends and family more than anything in this world. I've realized how afraid I am to lose them because as much as I hate to admit it, I need them. Without them, I'd have and be nothing. They've been there all along the way, even when I was too blind and too angry to see it. Even if they don't always understand me, they love me and they try.
That I may not be everybody's cup of tea--look or mind wise. But I'll find my people. They're around. Probably searching for their heads as well.
That even though I've learned so much, I still have so much I need to learn. This trip has only given me more to work on within myself. I'm still confused and most days I feel like a chicken with its head cut off and all I want to do is run up and down the halls screaming. But this is okay. Because there will be people who will run around and help me look for my head and for that, I'm immensely blessed.
That growing old really isn't for wussies.
I've learned, I don't really know what I'm looking for but I'm going to keep looking and following that pull until I find it.
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