Diary of an anxious traveller
Eurotrip 2024 part 1
Hey friends,
Today's post feels like a bit of a travel diary/thought jumble, but it's also real. I'm currently travelling and have jumbled thoughts, and as I write to make sense of everything, I thought it might make sense to share them with you.
I started writing this while people-watching in Dubai airport. I was between flights, lying on the floor, trying to stretch out my back after a long flight.
It’s 7 am and the sky is a faint beige. Every time I've been through this airport the sky is the same colour. Inside, there are fake palm trees and colourful advertisements and logos everywhere; air conditioning and recycled oxygen. It's a 24/7 bubble, all sleek lines, shops, and folks on their phones.
All the writing I've been doing recently about ruins, abandoned places, and ghost towns has had me thinking about the past and about the future. About what these sorts of places will look like in 20 or 50 years. If they'll still exist, or if it would be easier to just build a new terminal instead of trying to keep it updated while it's all in action.
That seems to be more the case in Perth, where I live, than in Europe or the UK, where I'm on my way to, now. Hospitals are designed with a shelf life of less than 50 years. Homes and roads, the same. Abandoned buildings are surrounded by security, roped off. Alarms siren if you get too close.
It all feels like such a waste; like nothing is built to last.
It's now Friday morning. I'm sitting by the window in my hotel in Bratislava, watching daylight rise over the old streets. Everything feels steeped in history and mystery.
Yesterday, we landed in Vienna and took a bus to the city, jumping out at the station under the bridge. I was instantly awed by the castle towering above us and the crumbling city walls.
It was funny landing in one country and then leaving to drive to another. I kept seeing shadows of my past self hitchhiking in truck stops, walking up to the cabs to see if they'd take us on. Cardboard signs for Croatia, Hungary, Poland. Eventually, I upgraded to a dry-wipe board.
I love being back in Europe.
It's taken a lot for me to get here. I feel like I've been on “waiting mode” for the past three months. Waiting mode - also known as time anxiety - is quite common within neurospicy folks.
I get it all the time. If I have a dentist appointment at 2pm, I spend the whole day tiptoeing around, unable to properly concentrate because I can't lose track of time. I then get there 15 minutes early. Or, if I do let myself lose track of time, I'm always late.
It's the same with these trips. I've spent three months suspended in time, waiting. I've found hotels, researched transport, tried to make a list of things to do and people to see, but it's all felt like climbing a mountain without a path. I can see the top and I know the steps I have to take to get there, but I can't quite get on track.
It's become a family joke how I have to pack and repack many times before a trip. After spending seven years carrying my life around in a backpack, I find short trips tough to pack for. Add in a dress and heels for a wedding and rolling luggage and seeing my mum and it gets even more complicated.
Still, it quietens my mind, too. Makes me feel like there's one thing I'm in control of.
I was explaining a friend to the other day how these trips are always “family plus”. Like yes, I'm over the moon to be here. I love this city. I'm in love with the old city walls and the castle, the cafes that spill out onto every street. The cellists in the square and the quiet reading garden in a secret nook. I'm in love with all the people who walk around without a care in the world.
I wish I were them.
As it is, I'm here and I'm in love. But it's only temporary. Soon, the bag, which is already repacked of course - last night's pre-bed task for quietening the mind so I could sleep after 27 hours of travel and a bit of a tricky mission to find gluten-free veggie food - and me will be making our way up to the railway station and taking a train to the mountains.
Later today, I'll be seeing people I used to live with in Cambodia who I haven't seen in seven years. Some, even longer. I'm not the same person I was last time they saw me. I doubt they're the same people, either, but my heart feels harder. My head heavier.
Like my rolling luggage - after years of chronic pain I can no longer carry around a backpack or even drag a wheeled duffle bag - I feel like I'm carrying around all of these worries and this stress, and getting tripped up by every cobblestone. Like I'm so anxious about the next part of my trip that I don't know how to be present for this one.
I envy the care-free looking people. The old versions of me with their cardboard and dry-wipe signs. The city walls, who have seen all those things and carried the weight of it all, and yet still stand strong. Patched together in places, of course, but still there.
I often talk about being a mosaic of all the lives we've lived and the stories we've told, but right now I feel it in my bones.
I'm the me here right now on this comfy hotel in this old city. I'm the me in waiting mode back in my house, packing and repacking my bag, desperately searching for some agency in this “family plus” trip. I'm the me who used to hitchhike, the me who backpacked around the world.
But then I'm also the me who is about to go and re-meet my mum for the first time in a year. The me who has a mum who doesn't know who she is; who can't walk properly and needs constant care and can't even feed herself anymore. The me who seems to keep arguing with my family about what's best for her. The me they say can't understand because I’m not there.
Having written this, I've realised I'm very much still in waiting mode. Just a different kind of waiting mode. Like I've swapped places and put on my travel hat, but the underlying anxiety is still there.
There are also still so many steps that need to fall into place.
Today, we have the train. Tomorrow, the wedding. Monday, we're tracing our steps back to Vienna. Wednesday, we're flying back to the UK. Saturday, we're going on a week away, one I'm not sure if my mum will be coming on, or not. I've never liked surprises, but it feels worse when so much is at stake.
Seven days of taking care of my mum will be very different to knowing that she's being taken care of and looked after by trained staff.
It's tough.
I know I'm so lucky to be able to do this. To have friends getting married, to be able to take these trips, to be able to spend this time with my family. But it's still tough.
That said, I'm also going to try my best to be present today. To be the carefree person who skips through the streets and glides over cobblestones. To meet the old versions of me as I zoom through the Slovakian countryside.
To not worry if I packed or didn't pack the right things. To not lament throwing in that extra sweater as I pick up my case and haul it around. To not berate myself for being out of practice and craving comfort.
To not be the person who feels anxious because she still doesn’t know if the mum who doesn't recognise her and needs constant care will be coming on a vacation with us or not, and what that will mean for the plans I've made.
To not think about the time I got the last flight into Australia before the borders closed and that now every time I travel I worry I’ll be locked out.
To not worry that I have a bunch of deadlines for articles I didn't plan for when I get back, and I am too anxious and exhausted to start writing them.
To not worry that this substack feels more like an incoherent jumble than a formulated piece. To try and embrace control of the things I do have control over, and let go of those I don't.
To be okay with the “family plus” trips not having the same enjoyment that travel used to have and appreciate that there is more of a reason for these undercurrents of anxiety.
It's still all a jumble in my mind, but writing this has helped.
So too has making it to the train station and getting on the train. One more step has fallen into place.
Now I just have to try and let myself fall into place, too.
I'll let you know how it goes.
All my love,
Cx
Ps: Bratislava is amazing. Highly recommend visiting if you ever get the chance.
Good luck with the journeys ahead - both physical and emotional. Say hello if you're near London at any point!
Thanks for sharing your unfiltered journey, Cassie! This line in particular really stood out to me, “To try and embrace control of the things I do have control over, and let go of those I don't.” It makes so much sense, yet it’s so hard to do, right? Sometimes I tell myself that life has its own plan for me so I just need to let the fuck go. I know the experience with your mum and family will be (has been) a tough one, but what helps me is to try and find the small moments of joy in the chaos. And also the vulnerability in it all, if that makes sense. I’ve done things now like help my mom eat, go to the bathroom, and get dressed and while it’s extremely hard to swap roles in a sense, it’s in these moments that I feel closer to her. 🫶 Lots of love!