It started, as ever, with a kiss.
It always starts with a kiss.
It never starts with four pints of lager, a worse for wear laptop, tatty Penneys pajamas and an overflowing ashtray, does it? That just doesn't sound romantic enough. It isn't a good enough story to recount at your imaginary promotion dinner, fancied wedding reception or to your theoretical grandchildren.
Except that's, exactly, where this story begins.
The room was illuminated by two small screens and orchestrated by the sound of eight tiny fingers tapping away.
I opened a fresh can. My Debit card was settled neatly and trophy-like on the armrest in full peripheral view.
Book! Book! Book! Book! Book!(!!!)
"It's so considerate of Ryanair to remember Visa details, saves the hassle of entering them in again," I thought to myself, smirking. I swigged at my beer and two thin jets of foam dripped down my chin, I let them course down towards my neck swallowing in fast, hard gulps until the glass was dry. "Wow! Booking-dot-com stores them too, happy out."
In a matter of minutes, I managed with ease to spend months and months and months' worth of savings.
Somehow, I deemed this erratic behaviour a cause for celebration.
I got up and began doing triumphant push ups on the living room floor.
"What are you on?" my housemate exclaimed to me, genuinely flummoxed.
Her headphones were off, her face was tensed, gazing at me in horror.
I had forgotten, in my drunken state, that she was in the room.
"A six week backpacking trip has been scheduled," I announced, wide-awake with a body clock set to Jedward-mode.
She rubbed her Netflix infused eyes and sat up. "That's great," she began, hoarse from not speaking.
I'd now moved onto doing victory jumping jacks.
"Wait! What did you do?" she demanded in startlement, suddenly fully alive in the present moment.
A discomforting tension had now diffused throughout the room and an unmistakable scent of doubt was in the air.
I grinned at her in anticipation and closed my eyes, half-cut from the beer. I paused for dramatic effect, shoulders stiffening, chancing my best Dermot O'Leary lingering pause.
"I'm going globe trotting through Europe," I repeated, folding my arms and leaning against the coffee table. The ice cubs in my drink rang against the glass.
Her face fell.
"Yes. Europe. The Netherlands, Italy, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium and Iceland, if you must know," I said, impatiently, in an urgent, determined-expression, newsreader voice, the hard-hitting type that makes you compelled to listen.
She gave out an incredulous gasp.
I rolled my eyes in annoyance, somehow forgetting I was the one who kick-started and engineered the entire conversation. She was entitled to pry and be totally inquisitive about my hasty booking spree.
I marched over to the couch and dug through the back of the cushions for my phone, expecting her ensuing shock to subside.
"Are you sure about this?" she questioned, knowing instinctively not to joke around or scoff at my sudden act of spontaneous defiance.
"Yeah. It's non-refundable," I said coolly, deadpan, pretending to casually check my eyebrows off the reflection from my phone screen.
"How much did you spend?" she sighed.
"Money isn't the be-all and end-all," I beamed.
"Patrick, I'm going to bed."
When she got up for college the next morning, it was eight o'clock. She was startled when she turned on the light to see me at my laptop in the near-total dark. I looked lemur-like and crazed.
After some stunned silence from us both she asked, "How's the trip planning?" somewhat wearily.
"Fine," I snapped back abruptly.
It was all I could croak up without venturing down a utterly hopeless anxiety induced cul-de-sac. There was a climbing tiredness behind my eyes and a look of morbid seriousness etched on my fatigued face. I was running on a combustion engine of caffeine, anticipation, and outright fear.
Rape whistles on Ebay, Money Belts on Amazon, unfavourable TripAdvisor reviews of different hostels I'd booked to stay in, photographs of Mountjoy to compare the similarity of it to my budget accommodation, homemade pepper spray recipes, YouTube videos detailing helpful tips for first time solo travelers, tutorials on how to spot pick-pocketing thieves, Scandinavian-inspired style guides, asking Jeeves if you can hire out a Red-Light District Prostitute as a non-sexual daytime sidekick to keep you company, basic swear words in Italian. I had more than twenty different windows open, each displaying so many tabs my computer had taken the executive decision to file the overflow into cumbersome sub-tabs.
Emboldened by my new revelation and ripped into consciousness after a good night's sleep, she turned to me: composed, steely, heavy in conviction.
"You need this," she said warmly.
And the truth is: I did. I really friggin' needed it. I needed to get out, away, anywhere far from Galway, and be in a place where no one knows my name (hiya, Rita Ora!). I've been too long sat on a shelf playing the perpetual loser, wallowing in misery. I needed a new postcode to bring some wind back in my sails.
I've a predilection for spur-of-the-moment outings, I've been on plane rides alone before, when fuelled by cheap shots and good conversation I can wander onto an after hours house party with a group of strangers I've met momentarily in a club, but going on a trip of this size alone.... that was far scarier. I didn’t tell many friends – or, critically, Facebook - I was going, because I knew that’d make me lose my nerve. I was terrified; yet I really wanted to do it. I felt like trumpets were tooting and harps tinkling, clouds parting and sun-rays bursting through, like birds tweeting with joy, but I was still scared stiff and deep down I knew it only took one smart alec keyboard warrior to make me get cold feet, reconsider and recede my plea.
I was stuck at this weird twilight era, an awkward halfway point paved with many perilous potholes that can cause even the most determined driver to derail.
And then somehow I was on a Dutch tram headed to South-East Amsterdam in amongst a throng of people in rush hour pedestrian traffic with my eyes running back and forth. The palms of my hands sweating and my cheeks flushed, arm hairs prickled, everything evaporating, heart beating in double-quick time because I was now too far in to turn back. I was giddy on a mix of terror and joy. Staring bewilderingly in awed wonder at those around me, and in quiet contemplation gazing sideways out the window at this bold new city, feeling a desolate tenderness but also an invigorating sense of freedom.
Swallowing rapidly and clutching my validated ticket, my brain was conditioned to recheck everything obsessively. Does my breath stink, do these commuters know I'm a foreigner, are the reservations correct, is my passport still in my back pocket?! My stomach whining from too much coffee and squelching strangely. A queasy feeling took main stage, if anything went wrong it was my fault and I'd have to face the consequences alone, there was no one here to lean or rely on. I even did a little cry because life can be a bit overwhelming sometimes.
I stepped off the vehicle and onto the gravel path of the inner-city and saw a dog, and for an instant wondered if animals could differentiate between locals and tourists. If a dog could tell I wasn't meant to be here, that I didn't belong, would it bark accusingly and expose me as a fraud.
I started teetering my way towards the hostel, slightly alarmed that no one was in sight. I stood for a moment with my hair bellowing, tonguing the shreds of my teeth, and the whammies began to mount up. In horror movies the blonde always dies first, there'll be an axe-wielding, mask-wearing madman nearby. I swiftly changed my stride to resemble a fearless, red-blooded alpha male, and stuck on a woolly hat figuring it would cast me as less of a target. After two blocks, I heard a strange noise. It was only half-seven in the evening, but with dark skies and my hyper-vigilance heightened into a frenzy I squealed an anguished wail and began running wildly down the quiet street.
(I can see, now, how pathetic I must seem, a fact that, ironically, only serves to make me feel even more self-pity.)
I turned a corner and out-of-nowhere, there was an elderly couple walking hand-in-hand before me.
The voices inside went frantic, verbal in full fuckwitage auto-rant.
"Shove the old people out of the way. Shove the old and infirm. If they are strong enough to resist you, they deserve to live."
I suppressed my urge and didn't commit the grievous crime, but maybe this proves I'm just an impulse away from appearing on Jeremy Kyle.
Later, in my dorm room, before I met my roommates, I went into the bathroom, and locked the door. I gave myself the ol' mirror prep talk. Y'know, where you look in the mirror candidly, establish your current state, give yourself a nod to tone it down a level and cool your shenanigans.
After that watershed moment, I settled into it, and became accustomed to my new surroundings. Slid into whatever my life would become for the next six weeks. Embraced the unknown.
I tried to become more of a 'yes' person and do things I normally wouldn't do. I pressed hard on my own buttons, forced myself into social situations, pushed myself out of the nest. I went to extremes in seeking solace and satisfaction. For someone so cautious, careful, safe and rule-abiding this did wonders for my lost little soul. And to not only do it, but to find thrills in the uncharted too. These were all healthy signs, like green sprouts coming out of the soil, indicating growth and good things coming.
Above all else, it was the people that made this trip. The amount that I met pottering through cities that were an absolute hoot to spend time with. Full of decency and tolerance. Charming and brilliant and great fun, and sadly heads I wouldn't have bumped into if traveling with a group. I'm dripping in gratitude that I met them, properly stunned and touched and praising the holy trinity of Jesus, Mary and Beyoncé that I was lucky enough to meet the good ones, the nice ones, the ones with the biggest hearts. Because without their cheerleading I probably - at one stage or another- wouldn't have been able to carry on. A Thank You doesn't begin to adequately express my praise to these people, because strength and wholeness and determination and grit and grace and courage won't ever be fully conveyed in two words. So, without inflicting a load of mwah-mwah acknowledgements on the reader, massive cyber hugs go to Ava, Madeline, Cáit, Mark, Mira, Luke, Ari, Fiona, Jenn. All solo-travelers I crossed paths with at various pit-stops, some living as nearby as County Clare, others as far away and other-worldly as Chengdu, China.
I do not know the sound of their tears or the way they greet their family. I don't know if they stand for pregnant women on the bus (I presume, of course, that they do), nor how quickly their moods can change if they get caught in the rain, or the deli has run out of their favourite snack. I don't even know what their favourite snacks are. What I do know is what they dream of; what sticks with them and how they rise to the challenge of their intuitions. These friendships were fleeting, but they were real and had integrity. Because being alone, people hold themselves accountable to themselves - to bring their rawest, most authentic, honest and kind versions. In order to strike up conversation with a randomer and unpick each other's human experience, getting dirt under the fingernails in the trenches of real life you have to look up and be present in the world for a hot second and lose all inhibitions. You can't rehearse what aspect of yourself a stranger will be enthralled by. These entire trips are designed to Eat, Pray, Love the shit out of yourself so if you sidestep and stick to ploys it's all be pointless and futile.
It gave me the reassuring realisation that, contrary to what I've always feared, in real life no one laughs at how badly you imagine you're doing. In fact, no one seems to be focusing on you at all because they'll all so focused on how they're doing themselves. As long as you're a nice person, the rest doesn't matter.
My batteries have recharged, my stars are burning brighter, I'm less desperate to escape myself, less shaken by sadness. The guilt unfurling inside me has decreased and that whirling pressure mounting so heavily has eased. I'm processing my thoughts and emotions better, my head no longer feels packed like a clogged artery. It kept me from the edge of the pit. It was a month and a half full of epiphany, and incontrovertible proof that if I can do it, anyone can. I quickly learned to firmly reject the assumption that being alone means being lonely. I'll never equate solitude with sadness again.
I'm so, SO, proud that I didn't give up. Proud that I dared to wonder if I could. I'm hungry to travel more and I'd 100% encourage everyone considering it to fire full-steam ahead. No matter what your age. Nothing - not meth, not sunbeds, not even the passage of time - is more ageing than saying you're too old for something.
In Heartburn, Nora Ephron says, "Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim".
Don't be waiting for permission to do whatever it is you want to do.
Try this, risk that, ask the question, hike the mountains, take up the space on this planet you implicitly deserve. Thrive.
Don't be waiting for permission to do whatever it is you want to do.
Try this, risk that, ask the question, hike the mountains, take up the space on this planet you implicitly deserve. Thrive.
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I shared some stories from my trip in varying amounts of detail on Instagram, if you're interested.
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