The Surrender Project: Day 29: It Feels Normal
After another evening of falling asleep way too late I set an alarm to wake up at 9:00 but didn’t get up until 9:30. Wanting to ever so slowly adapt myself to the 4:00 am wake-up times that are two days away. Going to bed at 3:00 am and waking up at 9:00 am isn’t really going to help much if I were to guess. Nonetheless the day finally did get started with a meditation, as I had nobody but myself to account for and no plans for the day, just knew I had to catch a bus at some point. After 45 minutes of meditation I headed out to the courtyard where I basked in the sun for a while and kept reading my book, Cloud Cuckoo Land. Deciding to just get breakfast at the hostel so I can keep lounging in the sun, I order four eggs, two rotis, tea, and a bowl of muesli, fruit, and curd. Of course after I eat I cannot start writing because I need my food to digest a bit, so I must keep reading. This takes another chunk of my day before I find myself googling random items I think I want to buy when I get back home. This is not a productive task, yet feels incredibly fun to just do some online shopping even if I am not buying anything, its been awhile. I have officially added two items to my list. First, a blender because last night I was reminiscing on how much I miss making my smoothies every morning and thinking about all the good ingredients I used to put in them. If you need smoothie ideas hit me up. Second to the list was running shoes because the ones I brought traveling I think shrunk a bit at some point and were probably too small in the first place, as I have lost toe nails after long runs. The thing about purchasing an item such as running shoes is that it takes me down deep rabbit holes on Reddit threads such as r/RunningShoeGeeks where people review and comment about their favorite shoes and why. It is basically exactly what it sounds like, a bunch of geeks geeking out over specs of running shoes. I probably spent two hours trying to find the pair that would be best suited for my running style, my gait, and overall desire. I still have no idea and in reality it probably doesn’t matter that much because I am the definition of an amateur runner. I share all this because I know we have all had these types of days before, where we find ourselves deep diving into random things such as blenders and running shoes instead of doing something we need to do, like writing a blog. I even ended up procrastinating to the point of finding a job on LinkedIn and applying, writing a cover letter, editing my resume again, and writing a story about what I have learned traveling. At least this feels like something actually productive? All this fooling around took me to around 4:00 pm, where I finally started my blog but couldn’t quite get into it, switching back to YouTube every few minutes to watch “one more” movie trailer. Not my most focused or productive day over all. I think it probably has a bit to do with not sleeping much last night and today being the day I decide to give up caffeine, as mentioned yesterday. I also think there is a restless aspect of being excited and looking forward to this next chapter. As much as I have thoroughly enjoyed writing everyday, part of me is ready for a day or two break, or what might end up being 10 days. Not only that, but it can be really hard to see something through on the final two days when you are so close to a big experience that you are looking forward to. It is sort of like the idea that as soon as you get an idea in your head that you are going to quit your job it is incredibly challenging to stay committed to doing your tasks and trying to go above and beyond each day. I understand that I am ready and anticipating this next chapter of the solo traveling, but I need to stay in the last two days of this one and not rush ahead of myself too much, that no matter what that experience is going to come so might as well stay present in the next two days.
I end up writing maybe 1,000 words before I decide I should probably eat. It isn’t that I am necessarily starving, but part of it was something to do and another excuse to sit and read my book. I head to the restaurant that I used to get breakfast at everyday when I was in Jaipur the first time. It made me happy to see the server guy light up when he saw me walking in, and come over to bring me napkins and a plate. I stuck with what I know and love, the kadai paneer again, and read a few more chapters of my book as I enjoyed what might be my last buttery bomb of a meal for a little while. After I ate I ventured back to the hostel to write again but felt dog tired and sluggish after the meal. It is sort of frustrating writing one of your last blogs and it starts to feel like it isn’t very good. That I do not feel confident in the message that I am trying to portray or it feels a bit like there isn’t the passion I try to typically write with. It felt like I was doing it because I had to do it, not because I had a desire to share in the first place. This might be something I pay attention to going forward and is an interesting problem that arises when you put a challenge around a creative act such as writing and photography. These are two mediums where you are sharing your work, your creativity, and a representation of yourself. I do not want to put out pictures or writing just because I have to, because I do not want to put out something that doesn’t feel like something I am choosing to share. I want the writing to feel like a story I want to share and express, not something I have to come up with. Going forward I definitely want to continue sharing my writing, but I think I am going to be careful about promising one per day for example. To be fair there have only been maybe 2 short instances where I didn’t really want to write. A softer timeline would allow me to be more articulate and improve my writing overall, while still sharing stories. This challenge is a bit different, as I am not too worried about the overall quality of my writing, but more so being able to complete a challenge and hold myself to a responsibility to share a creative act at a rate that requires self-discipline. So, part of the point is to feel like I do not want to write but still work through it and get it done because I have to. I am sure in Day 30 I will touch on this a bit more as I am assuming that will be a bit of a recap of the project as a whole.
I end up talking to a friend for about 30 minutes about the ideas I’ve written in my blogs, as well as some of our ideas around the duality of being present and looking forward to future goals. The idea of alternate activities that seem to have a similar return as meditation does, such as working out, yoga, running, or any other activities that force presence. I know I have used the term “force presence” a few times, but I really like the idea of finding things in life that do force presence because as we all know by now, the secret sauce is in the present. The human experience is only made up of the present moment, just a present moment after a present moment for X amount of years. Most of our present moments are doing weird things that we skim over; walking to your car in the morning, driving to work, getting lunch, eating meals, grocery shopping, etc. All of the things that we do as a midway point in accomplishing the next task. Walking to the car is a midway point to driving to work, which is a midway point to actually working. Grocery shopping is a midway point to eating, which we do just to fuel ourselves for the next event we go to. But so much of our present moments that we get are in these little tasks, which is why I am so convinced that the secret to a content and overall happy existence is finding peace and enjoying all of these moments. I could write a whole other blog about this because it fires me up to think about (or maybe it is the Americano I bought and am sipping on as I write this. So much for quitting caffeine), but these are all points I already made and do not have to get into it again right now.
At this point I definitely need to write my blog, knowing that I will be getting on a bus soon and will not have a chance to post it once I leave the hostel. I find some energy and finish it, realizing that I didn’t give myself as much time as I would have liked to figure out transportation and get to the bus stop stress free. However, just as my luck seems to be going, I was leaving at the same time as one of the hosts at the hostel and he saw me and offered to drop me off wherever I needed to go. This was incredibly nice and allowed me to get to the bus stop with plenty of time, even enough to grab a snack from the restaurant next door. I just ordered a naan with garlic and butter, worried that other things would take too long and didn’t want to mess with the possibility of missing a bus. Thankfully at this point my fear of missing a bus has gone down as I have caught the recent few and have seemed to figure out the trick. Which is show up where the bus originally starts, not one of the random spots you can choose for a pickup. I got my naan and waited on the steps to the travel agency and watched life happen for a minute. Then a thought hit me: that this feels completely normal. It was more than the feeling of just being used to traveling, it was that sitting on a street in India waiting for a bus eating a naan felt like the most normal thing in the world. The fact that I hopped on the back of the hostels guys moped who took me close to the bus stand, where I walked down a street, crossed a busy street with cars and motorbikes passing inches from me, over to a spot to order naan. All of it just felt so normal, like getting a coffee in the city back home. Normal to the point that I didn’t even really realize what I was doing. I have thought over the last 16 hours what is a better way to describe this than “normal” but I am coming up blank. It feels deeper than just normal, it feels more profound in a sense, almost like I think it is going to be harder shifting back to life back home because this life feels regular now. It isn’t that I haven’t felt in the groove before, but maybe this is just my solo groove as it now has been a month of traveling without somebody. Even now I am trying to find the words to describe the feeling, it was comfortable to be sitting on the sidewalk with both of my bags at my feet munching on a naan, getting ready to spend the next 12 hours on a sleeper bus, something that also feels normal to me now. It felt good, and also made me even more ready to venture into this next phase of spending the days at the temple which should be a challenge in itself. Something different than anything I have ever done, something that connects to a deeper religion that I do not know much about. I will note, the saint says everybody is open to come, that I do not need to convert or become part of any religion, that I am welcome to learn and be in the space just because I exist. Maybe certain things just take longer to sink in, maybe this is just going on to the next level of sinking in, of reaching a new point in this overall journey. Like even when we make a simple move, maybe a new house after freshman year of college, it takes a few months to fully settle into that routine of what life looks like in that space. I am curious how this will dictate how I continue to travel going forward or what I choose to seek. Even though it sorta feels like I am not seeking anything at this moment and just seeing where life takes me. I do not know how long I will be at the temple for, or what is next after that. But that isn’t even something I want to think about yet, at all. I want to dive head first into this experience for what it is and not look past the ten days, allow that to be a challenge in and of itself. Which not really having any idea what I am getting into I am assuming there will be some challenge.
The idea of everything feeling normal instilled a bit of confidence in myself, the feeling of being able to do whatever it is that I seek next. I sat in this feeling for a while and actually wrote a bit about how overall content and happy I am in this moment. It is a really good feeling to be able to sit in that space for a bit and look out the window, realizing there is no other place I would rather be right now. I sat with it for a bit, then determined it was finally time to get my movie in, as I had downloaded one before the bus knowing it would be my last chance before the time at the temple. The movie was baby driver, which turned out to be a movie I rather enjoyed and would watch again. Plus, I got a few good songs from it that I threw on after the movie ended, allowing my mind to drift and play out some daydreams as I walked the fine line between dreaming and being awake. Even though it is never great sleep, I find I really enjoy that space for thinking or dreaming up fun little fantasies. Another solid day, even if I found some time to procrastinate in the middle of it. Maybe another reminder that a good day doesn’t have to be an incredibly productive one, but I can find the enjoyment of living in all of the in-between moments as well. Tomorrow is the final blog of this project, wow. A bit of bittersweetness in that as well. But I will dive into all the thoughts and feelings in the recap tomorrow.
