Thoughts

Getting What You Wished For

/ achinasoul / 1 Comment

I have tried and struggled to put into words the multiple times that I have attempted to process this relationship. It’s a very new and slightly puzzling experience to try and express how I feel but never feeling like I’m doing it justice.

Throughout my life thus far, I have been learning – always learning – particularly about things I may not want in a relationship. I had resigned myself to the fact that to be in a relationship I will end up having to compromise a fair amount because where am I going to find someone particular in the same ways as me? I still pinch myself from time to time to make sure I haven’t just made him up in my mind.

It’s a weird feeling to have, he makes me so happy but the kind of happy where it’s not overly animated. In a way that you are content with life. I know this is something special.

Advertisement

London

/ achinasoul / Leave a comment

Having never wanted to move here in the first place, never wanted to stay, never wanted to come back after travelling, I mean every word when I say I do not want to stay in London. I will truly be heartbroken if in ten years or maybe even five years time I am still here. But no matter how much I mean that, I also know there will always be somewhere in my heart for this city. Like a long term relationship, it has shaped and moulded my life in my years as a newly fledged adult. That will forever remain part of my identity. Like everything else that has influenced me in my life, I would not be the person I am without having been here. With nearly 7 years since I moved here, that’s a significant proportion of my life.

I write this as I sit on the bus home just going past Tower of London and going onto Tower Bridge. It is these moments when there is that moment of stillness as the almost empty bus sits in momentary traffic just in front of Tower of London that I think “I’m pretty lucky to be here”. This city swallows and spits out people everyday, and I am here, still standing. It’s a reaffirming message – you’re alright, you’ll be fine.

Checking In

/ achinasoul / Leave a comment

It’s been a little while since I’ve done any writing. The last month to 6 weeks have been manic – I’ve barely had time to have a thought to myself. So much for my intention of coming back into London life and making more time for myself. Sadly, I just get too caught up in wanting to do things so that everything planned just happens at once. It’s a perpetual cycle of doing too much, doing too little, doing too much, doing too little. The problem with doing too much is that I don’t get much time to self-reflect or process things as they happen. You get so caught up with trying to get things done that there is no real thinking behind it. I wonder if it’s a London thing or if it’s a me thing. I certainly didn’t have this pace in lifestyle when I was away travelling.

I am very tired. Hopefully June will be slower paced but who knows…

 

 

Death, Our Constant Companion

/ achinasoul / Leave a comment

News of the presumed death of Hansjorg Auer, David Lama and Jess Roskelley are making their rounds within the climbing and mountaineering community.

I don’t really know what to say.

It’s hard to grasp when the people you admire, who are three of your community’s and mankind’s best, are taken away by the very venture they excel at.

It’s humbling in a way. No matter how good you are at your trade, if nature decides it, then an avalanche will lay waste to you. It doesn’t give a fuck about how expert you are. And yet we play at nature’s feet. Because we’re compelled to, because we’re not living if we don’t. Like an analogy I read once, I believe from Alex Honnold – Alone on the Wall, as a climber to not live the life you are drawn to, is like to have a sports car and only drive it to the end of the road at speed limit and back.

But damn.

I had the fortune of being at an event a couple of years ago where Hansjorg Auer premiered his film “No Turning Back” and had a Q&A session with the host. He had such a raw energy about him, it’s hard to connect that with the fact that he, along with brilliant David Lama and Jess Roskelley, are gone. The energy dissipated. What hits home even harder is that David Lama is the same age as me. All of them brilliant and in their prime, just gone.

Death eventually comes for all of us. Events like this serves as a heavy reminder and give us pause to reflect, contemplate and mourn. But it should never deter us from our dreams for adventure. To show respect to the dead, to ourselves, we need to carry on with their memories and continue living the life we must. The life that we couldn’t be living without.

Rest in peace guys, you may be gone but you won’t be forgotten.

Breathe and Let Go

/ achinasoul / Leave a comment

Expectation is such a double edge sword. On one hand, it helps give the motivation and confidence to fully commit to things because you expect to be able to do it. On the other hand, it does create this discord within oneself when you fail to meet your expectations. It’s so easy to fall into that rabbit hole of berating yourself and falling deeper into the vicious circle.

We all would do well to remind ourselves from time to time that we are not invincible and we are not limitless. To be able to listen to oneself and to take a more overview perspective to be able to see the upwards trend in progression is so important. Yes we should set goals and work with expectations but we are the only person we will ever get to be in this life. If you are keep knocking yourself down from not meeting expectations, to what purpose does that serve?

Mourning a Ghost

/ achinasoul / 1 Comment

I still miss you. I can hardly believe it myself but I do. I’ve always found it tricky to let go and move on after relationships but I’ve never stuck around for long. It’s coming up to five months and I still feel a deep sense of loss when flashbacks ambush me or when I wonder about you. It’s slowly dawning on me that maybe it will always be that way.

It’s frustrating to be in this circle. I think about you, feel the sadness, get frustrated that it’s still so dominant but allow myself to feel in the hope that I’m working through it and thus it goes round.

I’m not pining. I’m pulling hard hours at work, see friends, climb, yoga and plan trips to escape the city. I joke, laugh, rant and cry. I’m a different person to the one I was already but emotionally I am still there.

I’ve worked through it rationally as much as I need to. I know I’m fine on my own, and I understand from an overall perspective things as they were, why things happened. But nothing helps this sense of loss that hits me in the core and I can’t shake.

The worst part of it all is that the person I miss isn’t even the you that you are now. Or even the you who you were five months ago when we broke up. I miss the you from almost a year ago (doesn’t time fly quickly?). The worst part of it is knowing the person I miss doesn’t even exist right now. I am mourning a memory. I have no precedent of how this goes. All I can do is see how it goes just to keep going.

Go the Distance

/ achinasoul / Leave a comment

Just a short one today.

For the longest time I’ve been trying to find somewhere that I feel I belong/ feel at home but have never been successful. Either not been able to find somewhere or it’s slipped through my fingers.

Traveling is the one place that this doesn’t seem to matter. I always felt like I belong even though it’s the most transitional state I’ve ever been in. I think because you and the people around you are so transitory that you are connected by the fact you are there together at the same point in time – coincidence and luck play a part. In that way I think it’s beautiful.