travelling is dying

9.30 a.m.
so here i am, sitting at the aiport. I don´t exactly remember how i got here. I must have somehow managed to get almost everything done and actually pack my things for the ashram.
I look around and see young couples, older couples, young families with babies, mothers with teenage children. I try to imagine why they are going to their destination. Whether it´s holidays or family visits, if they actually go home from a trip or are going to live in an ashram. Hm, i might be the only one here with that intention. For a little moment, i feel special, then thinking whether i am hooked to that feeling of doing something extrordinary. I have a very physical remembrance of how i felt when I was 16 and went to Australia for the first time. Feeling like a brave adventurer and somewhat heroic and tough.
I feel sad and incredibly happy at the same time. I leave so much behind right now I probably can´t even grasp myself just HOW much it is. I am sad to leave the familiar, the easy life (as in you know how it works), the clearly visible path. It feels a little like dying. As if you had to let something die inside in order to make space for the experience of adapting to a new life.
On the plane I sit next to an elderly German couple and with some irritation I watch them be all excited about their lunch sandwiches being served, being very tense about whether they´ll get the right food, whether it´s been paid for and so on. They are excited like little kids who have been prmised some ice-cream for desert. That they can pick themselves. With a bold glance at their travel documents I read that they´ll stay till 22nd December. Wow, they will definetely stay longer than I intend to for now and I just judged them as being immature over their lunch behaviour.

1 p.m.
I arrive to a hot country. Gosh, it had been so cold and wet at home the last two weeks I had already forgotten it can actually be really warm and I can sweat. I am picked up by my teacher´s wife (she´s also a yoga teacher) and there comes even more memories of being picked up at the airport by my host mum including the anxiety attacks waiting at the baggage claim and having the impression that I am and always will be the last one to get her suitcase only to be able to enjoy sweet moments of incertainty. To make it even better, we pick up her son at a German school where he met some friends for a LAN party (this teenage boy´s dad wears a turban and a very long beard, by the way). After a short drive we arrive at a beautiful house in the middle of nature and I am welcomed by a friendly (and very happily licking) dog. Which would be the next similarity. I can chose my own room, we have a lovely lunch (there´s sweets and coffee around ;-)) get shown round the house and find out that my yoga teacher´s son is not only a computer junkie but also a surfer. Although he thinks with his 15 years his far too old to learn it as he only started a year ago. He probably will die laughing when he finds out I want to give it another shot at almost 31. (At least I find out there´s plenty of surf schools around and I´ll have a chance to take classes there!!)

4 p.m.
It´s an intense day. I sit on one of the terraces and try to realize where I am, feel a little lost and alone and even wonder at one point what I am actually doing here. I am throwing sticks for the dog and can´t believe just how much I feel like being 16 again. And of course not at all at the same time.

9 p.m.
I manage to arrive some more after a 2 hours nap (unintendedly) and a nice soup and conversation with my 'yoga host mum'. It´s nice to be here. I AM in the right place, I think I am just very nervous about the confrontation with myself. Cause I can feel it lining up at the horizon. It´ll be some journey. I am so happy that I have managed to get here after all. But I see ever so clearly what I leave behind. What is dead or maybe still dying. And even if it´s all good to get rid of in the end, there is this huge sadness of loss and grief. The one you also feel when somebody dies you didn´t even know.