People always leave

Peyton Sawyer hit a nail in the head with her artwork saying that People Always Leave and despite it being a very simple concept I didn't realise its full meaning until I was in the UK for couple of years. 

All of us use the phrase "I miss you" all the time. Sometimes we forget about it the next minute but sometimes those three words are just the tip of the iceberg. The iceberg being unendurable need to have certain people in your life and be a part, however small, of theirs..

When I left my Polish home at the age of 19 a lot of unfinished business had been left, well, unfinished. It was never my goal to stay in the UK for a long time; I never believed it would even be possible. "One, maybe two years and I will have to go back" - though my younger self. 

Suddenly 6 more years had passed and second decade of the second millennium was in full swing. I found myself still stuck in the past and every time I went to places or people, from which I needed some kind of closure, it wouldn't happen. Living in the past is dangerous, they say. They are bloody right! It's like never-stopping blind rotating past events in front of your eyes blocking all the sun that is the present and the future. 

The first 5 years of my UK life were very rocky. The recession of 2008 didn't help when we saw an exodus of people leaving the UK because of jobs lost. Amongst them a lot of people who became friends, some of them were friends even before Now imagine that kind of emotional rollercoaster. You find people you click with and then they have to leave. Put this on repeat and a pattern forms in your head that that's what the life is like. 

Forward another few years and I was gearing up to leave UK. Situation at work put the first few nails in that coffin and the desire to get out of a rot was a dealmaker. There was always something to this decision that I hadn't understood before. I realised in order to preserve my sanity I had to do the leaving from now on. So I did.

While I have been travelling for the last two years pretty much all of my friends and family got married, had kids, and settled down. I moved from country to country, met new people, found places that changed me forever. I will be brutally honest here. Keeping in touch is hard. It got especially hard for me when I always felt like my life is inferior to my friends'. I mean how can you ask for somebody's time if you know they have family to spend time with. 

This inferiority complex is the cause of one of the worst things I still need to work on when it comes to my character. I barely make the first move and if I do and it fails then I probably won't attempt it again for a long time, if ever. It doesn't mean I forget about people Exactly opposite. There's no day that I don't think about people who made me who I am and shared amazing memories with me. Whether that be a party at Manor Road,  visit to Valencia, playing pool in San Carlos, hiking through Lake District, spending New Year's Eve dancing salsa, and more. I am glad I managed to turn the thoughts about missing those people into little pieces of happiness. After all it's a gift to be able to have these memories.  And when I can't talk I write - it has always been my emotional escape to reset my mind a little bit.

Few weeks ago I had to say another set of goodbyes. To people who changed my life, to a place that I'd always wanted to visit, and to memories I built along the way. You would think that just because you said literally hundreds of goodbyes in the past few years then you become used to it, that it gets easier. Unfortunately that's not the case. Every person that crosses your path brings something new to your life, unvierse has an interesting way to make that happen.

What is your dream holiday? Be honest. If you could go anywhere what would you do? When I plan my holiday (when I have a job) or my next play to visit it's always around people. I stopped thinking about my free time as an opportunity to be lazy on the beach or doing anything. I always think who I could visit next. This year it's Singapore. It has been too many years since I've been there and I can't wait to see my friends. People have become my life. I can't imagine going somewhere just to do nothing - if I can go anywhere in the world I might as well see somebody I haven't seen for years! That's why a remote job is my dream job because most of my friends have jobs or schools, so I can't see them during the day anyway.
That's what makes me happy. Seeing people who made a difference to my life happy. WIth their families, kids, dreams, and full of positivity. That's why I sometimes come back to those places. The last few years left me totally different than I used to be. I learned that happiness is not a state of your life, it's like oxygen that you need to keep going. Sometimes when I'm low on oxygen I feel the worst. Then a memory therapy comes in. Looking at pictures and going back in my memory to reminisce the future of our past.. 
Travelling is not always rosy. Sometimes those thoughts about the past get the best of you and you question everything you do, where you're going, and what the future holds. Like everything great in life you have to survive those little downsides and keep going forward. There have been so many people that I have met so far and despite of how cliche it may sound - in the end it is all about people. But we all have our own ways of living life. Mine is a little bit unorthodox for some of my friends. They envy my freedom but I envy their attachment. 

To all those special people in my life. If you don't hear from me it's not because I don't think about you - it's because I do, a lot.