I was actually meant to come to Nepal in January 2015. It was my dream to travel and in order to finally realise it, I entered myself on to a voluntary scheme after completing university. I raised money for the three month long trip, got all my injections, booked the flights, dedicated myself to the charity. I was all set and I couldn’t wait. What could possibly happen to get in the way now? I thought.

Haha

Silly me.

Life. That’s what happened.

After a five year long relationship, my ex and I broke up at the end of 2014. Let’s just say I took it really badly. I was missing my final shifts at work, ignoring my friends and on anti-depressants. I couldn’t sleep, yet in order to escape my reality that’s all I wanted to do.

I couldn’t conceive a life without the person I had spent my entire teenage existence with. What was the point? What did I have to look forward to? What did I have left when all I knew and understood had unraveled and left me in a messy pile on the floor?

I contemplated death. It seemed somewhat rational at the time. In the depths of my depression I sunk into a tunnel and there was no light at the end. I saw happiness in nothing and sought resolution in ending what I perceived to be a torturous and dysfunctional mind.

I spent New Years Eve in bed with my fingers in my ears to block out the sound of fireworks. I left the house so many times during the night my parents resorted to locking me inside and taking away my phone. I lied to the police when they sat in my living room and asked if I was okay after disappearing all evening. 

Obsessed with the past my mind would flick through a never ending reel of ‘what if’s’. What if I had done this? What if I hadn’t of done this? Would I be where I am now? Would this all have happened?

All I could do to distract myself was watch muted games of football or snooker on TV. I followed movements on the screen without having to think or process words or storylines. I could sink into a numbness that relaxed my mind and took away the relentless ticking, if only for a few moments.

I’d gotten to a point where I was convinced I would ever be happy again.

But then, one day, after months of sadness, cracks started to form in the tunnel that was once so dark. Light began to trickle through. I could feel the all so familiar laughter in my belly bubble and rise to the surface. I could partake in conversation with genuine interest and without glazed expression. I could sit in a chair and think about nothingness and simply enjoy my own company.

I started to feel better again.

Why? How?

Unfortunately, I cannot tell you these things. I’m not sure what triggered the change.

What I can tell you is what I have learnt from this experience, what I am still learning today and every day going forward on this continual life-long journey…

…I have learnt that the very thing that destroyed me and led me to my lowest mental depths is now my saviour. What once tortured me now elates me. What once drove me to what I can only describe as insanity now motivates and drives me forward.

I had to become a fool, a child, to be reborn again.

I now know that everything that happens in my life serves a purpose; providing me with a lesson to be taken forward and heeded. I now know to listen to the universe and come to peace with its teachings, to accept that nothing stays the same and that time will always move forward. I know that the sun will never cease to shine. I know that the moon will always in turn reflect it.

Indeed it is these very opposites that keep the pendulum of my life swinging. In every truth and in every joy there is an equally true and equally necessary opposite. Would I be able to describe health if I had not endured illness? Would I be able to feel happiness so great I could burst if I had not felt a sadness so deep that it deflated my soul?

I therefore thank my ex and I thank my dark days for the lessons they have taught me.

I thank my family and I thank my friends for their constant presence, love and advice.

But most of all, I thank my own mind for letting go of the past.

Letting go, learning, and moving on, has enabled me to grow as a person. Of course I have had bad experiences since, some big, some small, as we all do, and though all bumps in the road seem difficult at the time, I am starting to understand the tunnels life leads me through.

I understand that it’s okay to feel sad, and it’s okay to feel down. It’s okay to feel darkness. As long as I remember that the tunnels of my life have led me here, to Nepal, and I am finally realising my dream.

This path is stupid, it goes in spirals, perhaps in circles, but whichever way it goes, I will follow it.

Siddhartha, Herman Hesse, page 75

All my love.

T xx