Create Your Own Adventure - Lost With a Perfect Sense of Direction
Well, that’s it I guess. It’s all over. As the plane made its way across London, after nearly five months navigating my way across the length of India, it’s finally over.
Create Your Own Adventure 2019 is complete.
Back to normality...or is it? Since I returned to the UK, I have noticed myself wandering aimlessly, lost yet with a perfect sense of direction. A newfound freedom, without the shackles of self-doubt and fear of failure weighing heavily upon my shoulders. When you’ve just walked over 2,500 miles in the conditions I have, it’s surprising how the burdens of everyday life fail to faze me.
But, I am faced with the stark reality of my life becoming that of a normal person. Buying groceries and grabbing a coffee. Jogging on the common or meeting friends for dinner. All enjoyable and civil, but not quite sleeping outside under a tree staring up at the stars in the deserts of Rajasthan…whilst not getting pissed on by the stray dogs!
Being back has been a bit of a head fuck, I won’t lie!
Normal life just seems so claustrophobic at times. As winter nights draw in, and familiar surroundings become the norm again, I long to just wake up suddenly at 3am grab my rucksack and walk into the unknown, completely unplanned. All because I decided at that very moment that it's exactly what I want to do. No fucks given. And that, was the beauty of taking on such a challenge. Freedom.
"One man’s freedom is another man’s prison”
Yet freedom to me started the very moment I choose to embark on such a crazy adventure some months before. Closely followed by fear and apprehension as the date drew nearer. But, it was the freedom to create my own adventure for the next six months. A freedom that allowed me to escape the mini mid-life crisis I was going through at the time.
Who am I?
What have I achieved in life?
Have I had enough sexual partners?
Been on enough lads holidays?…god, what was I thinking for a man turning 40.
Had enough “baller” experiences?
Basically, had I ticked enough things off of the “manly shit” to-list, as if turning 40 was my entire life over. I’d never had a mid-life crisis before; nor did I expect to have one when I reached the less than ripe age of bloody forty!
But the reality was the adventure had only just started. Nothing could have prepared me for the most life changing adventure I could have ever embarked on.
Robbed at Knifepoint
Caught up in the riots in Kashmir
Run over by a drunk driver
Nearly died in Rajasthan
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