Screwing the head back on

An Airbnb of one’s own

This week I have been travelling alone again. I think what I enjoy most about getting away solo is the overwhelming sense of agency that comes with it.

In adulthood, you go about your day alone for varying degrees and amounts of time. But so much of your day-to-day, even when you are alone, is muscle memory and second nature. We forget how we are the ones orchestrating our lives. We make the decisions, we’re in control. As someone who is very aware of themselves and their existence, engaged in constant dialogue with the inner monologued voice that resides in my mind I am constantly attuned to my surroundings. Assessing and observing. Noticing and paying keen attention. Travelling alone these senses I have are heightened. I had this overwhelming sense when sitting outside eating a pastel de nata and reading my book (Kindle but book sounds more poetic dontcha think?) I was free to do whatever happened next. Get a coffee? If you like. Go for a wander? Sure. Head back and take a nap on the sofa? Why not! The self-enforced judgement I’ve had previously has waned over time that when going on a trip, I don’t need to always be exploring if I don’t feel like it. That’s not necessarily what I want to get out of the time time, particularly if I’ve travelled on my own.

One of the most important and valuable things I’ve been able to take away from solo travel is the temporary suspension from reality that allows what’s important to float to the surface. All that you need and should be prioritising is made clear to you. You can’t run, you can’t turn to your usual comforts or distractions (at the very least they’re more limited). It’s just you and your thoughts. Scary. I tend to get quite emotional or have a peak at some point in the trip of heightened emotional unloading. Today, after a big long overdue cry that’s made my eyes itchy and irritated ever since, I felt a sense of relief akin to taking off my bra after a long, long day.

Could I live in Lisbon?

It’s hard to tell. I am so often lost for answers to questions like this. Empirical yes or no questions unnerve me. What happens if I change my mind? How can I ever have all the information I need to make the right, informed choice?

I need to think through questions like this with more time and attention. I must have patience and let the rationale come to me. Something I’m not good at and equally feel resentful of. Why can’t I allow myself to have an opinion that may change and not feel bound by the answer I provide at any given point in time for the rest of eternity? I don’t want to feel defined by my answers when I’m not convinced strongly yes or no about something. “I don’t know” is an answer I have in my arsenal that is used so regularly that “yes” and “no” have started to gather dust.

Could I live in Lisbon? I don’t know. I don’t want to be defined as the type of person who could or couldn’t until I’m sure. Until I’ve worked it out.

I think it probably takes me an extended amount of time in one place, or frequent visits both alone and with friends to have the belief that a place not London could be somewhere I would want to live or that I’d consider it. I like places steeped in history and culture. I need to have an interest in the language and in the food. In the culture or their way of life. Have I felt a sense of belonging here? Has it been difficult to settle?

I want to be the type of person who travels and visits new places finding it easy to make friends. I don’t. At all. I find it anxiety inducing and I actively avoid being in situations where other people travelling alone might try to befriend me. I had considered signing up for Timeleft and meeting people in Lisbon but I couldn’t. It felt too scary. I am not good at meeting total strangers. When we’re on mutual ground I’m okay. If you’re a friend of a friend or we share a specific common interest. If I have to step outside of my comfort zone I recoil, the fear of the first impression overpowering me.

A place you live should have ghosts. There should be memories good and bad lurking in city streets. That’s what makes a life. No so bad that you’re scared to leave the house. But restaurants you’ll avoid returning to, rolling your eyes in the process at the memory of that conversation happening there. Locations of good dates, of bad dates, of where you tried your first oyster. Spotting Charli XCX having lunch with her boyfriend, birthday dinners, break ups, a man outside a coffee shop wiping his mouth with a napkin covered in pigeon shit.

I want to keep travelling and seeing more of the world. I want to take more trips by myself and I want to unleash more memory ghosts. I’m not looking to move anywhere so I don’t know why I keep asking myself the question. It’s funny how theoreticals and hypotheticals arise with such pressing intensity, despite having no real objective importance in my life in the present at all.