The Forgotten

It turns out the last three years have been a little hectic to say the least.

My brain has officially melted.

Could this mental block I am feeling be the result of COVID19 or the result of me probably not writing for the better part of two years? I would like to blame the global spicy cough but in reality it is the latter. I am dusting off the keyboard so please bear with me.

I saw a photo tonight that brought back a swath of memories. I am sitting on an old road bicycle in the north of France. I think I was 21 and had just spent the previous ten months in Canada. The biggest decision I had to make in life at that time was what should I eat next and where should I stay that night. I had my backpack tied to the back of the bike and looked like a turtle migrating up the beach. Carefree is a word that I would use to describe the image. Little did I know then but I was very fortunate to experience those freedoms at that age.

So much has happened over the last three years. If you stop and really think about it you will melt the brain. We have had the unknown followed by the who knows and finishing up with what next? It has been a wild ride to say the least, yet you are reading this and we are still here.

There have been days, months and years filled with lockdowns, lockouts, vaccinations, more vaccinations, anti-vaccinations, mask wearing, hand washing, and cough covering. We have had wars, elections, demonstrations, floods, bushfires, more floods, more wars mixed with toilet paper hoarders and closed boarders. We have even seen what happened when Harry met Sally (Meghan) with the royal family splitting apart.

We have had sport stars retire from life never to grace our screens again. Hell, even in my own life I have gone from being a father of none to a father of one with another fast approaching.

I am not a religious man but if there is a heaven I am presuming that all the gods are having a gathering (with no more than 2 per square metre of course). It feels like they have thrown every left over script of every Hollywood movie in the one basket and each week they pull another out. “What script is it this week?” asks God while sipping on a scotch and coke. “Ahhh it is the one about dousing the world with infectious diseases to see what happens…” replies Buddha while blowing smoke rings.

At first I heard that curving the spread of the Covid virus meant coughing into your elbow and I thought that sounds bloody ludicrous, what kind of joke is that? The next thing I know we are watching people fight over 2 ply in aisle 3.

Enough is enough.

Life has not stopped, and yes you guessed it! If you are reading this you are still here.

I could write about any of the above topics but I will not, enough has been said.

This is a blog for the lost generation, an age bracket that I feel tremendously sorry for. No it is not the elderly who have definitely suffered and have my commiserations. It is actually those that are in their early to mid-twenties and had to endure some of their best years while grappling with the restraints of this modern world we live in. The generation that I think have not had much light shone on them during the last few years and may suffer for a long time to come. Combine prolonged isolation mixed with loneliness and the dramatic increases in mental health diseases and you have a recipe for disaster.

These are the years when the world is meant to be yours to conquer, yet the better part of the last few years would have been spent jobless, on job keeper and not knowing what the future holds.

If I can send one message to this age bracket it would be to now travel, go to concerts, go on road trips and to not have a care in the world. When the opportunity arises say yes to the unknown because unfortunately you have already missed out on so much.

Some people would have had grand plans to travel the world and those plans would have been put on hold. Some will go again but I feel for the ones who have permanently shelved the idea of distant lands. Money would have been saved and trips planned but the uncertainty of when the world was going to open again would have lead some to invest in their first home or use those savings to purchase their first car. These are monetary assets instead of the mentally rewarding asset that travel can provide. I am now 34 and living in my own home and not for one second do I ever regret the money I have spent on travelling. It feels great to own (loosely used term to describe the bank owning our house) our own place but the truth is it is just a house. It sounds corny and that is fine but when I look back on living here, it will only ever be the memories of family and friends filling these walls that bring a smile to the dial.

The sad part is that some people will never get to experience the feeling of backpacking through new countries, they will never gain the confidence, independence and feeling of freedom that travelling provides. Backpacking and travelling requires you to leave the relative safety net of your friends and family and try new things. These new things may end up shaping the person you become.

What are the gifts of travelling?

Making friends can be the most daunting of tasks. Personally I grew up in a small town where everybody knew each other and the team you played football for pretty much went hand in hand with your friendship circle. Travel takes away those imaginary boundaries of friendship and allows you to truly connect with people that you gravitate towards and that gravitate towards you. It opens pathways to the unknown, which is scary but rewarding at the same time. You will find that you can be yourself and begin to feel comfortable in your own skin, something that takes years to truly master and is definitely still a work in progress. I still chat to mates that I made 14 years ago, some of these friends I may have only met for a month or two whereas others I may have lived with for six months.

Travel allows you to be vulnerable and teaches you how to ask for help when it is needed. You get the impression when watching the daily news cycle that the world is a scary place. You get the feeling that danger is lurking outside your front door in the morning. We live on a planet with nearly 8 billion people and they can only fill a 30 minute slot on the news with main stories from that day. You will be ok. I can honestly say that if you do find yourself in trouble or needing a hand there are not too many times that I can remember when help was not given when it was asked for.  

Confidence is definitely a seed that sprouts from travelling. It is not to be mixed up with arrogance, which is quite frankly an inflated opinion of your own worth. Something that I most probably suffered from growing up in a small town before I actually realised my place in the world.  Confidence is when you learn to back yourself in.  You do not realise it but your confidence builds right away starting with the planning stages of your adventure. It then builds as you place your first foot on that plane to an unknown destination. Your confidence will grow the longer you are away and you will start to be aware of just how much you can achieve when you set your mind to it, how you can influence others for the better and how much you can learn when you put yourself out there.  

Independence is a daunting word. You are on your own to do as you please but the repercussions of your decisions are entirely on you. Personally, I feel that independence goes hand in hand with freedom. Quite quickly you will learn just how free you are in this world. Being born in Australia and having an Australian passport opens many doors and allows you many opportunities to work and travel all over the world. Realising that freedom is only one plane ticket away is such a gift that you will no longer take for granted.

Not until you are standing in a shower with a gas bottle sitting on the floor next to you hooked up to the hot water tap are you grateful for the facilities of the western world. Not until you are squatting over a hole in the Himalayas in -15 Celsius trying to poo are you grateful for a flushing toilet. Not until you are packed into a three metre by three metre hotel room, 30 stories into the sky with buildings as far as the eye can see are you grateful for the wide open spaces of Australia. Growing up with the luxuries of the western world are a normality for so many, not until you see how over half of the world population’s live without these luxuries do you really become grateful for all we have.

These are only a few things you will learn while travelling. It is just a taste of a large list that continues to grow the further you explore. You will no doubt learn more about yourself with a backpack on than you will walking the all to familiar streets of your home town.

The ultimate feeling of freedom goes hand in hand with travelling. Be that near or far, alone or with somebody else. Travel will fill your basket with all the things you need from life. Great friends, new experiences, laughter, love and some all mighty hangovers that leave you a quivering mess…… I just threw that last one in to see if you were still reading. I would never trade my travel experiences for anything, be them good or bad. Travel allowed me to open my eyes to the world and be grateful for the place I call home.

This started as a two sentence post about travelling yet I now find myself here. I have been trying in vain to force myself to start blogging again over the last couple of months but I felt I had nothing to write about. I work, I family, I sleep, I repeat.

I’ll try to change this to, I work, I family, I write, I photo, I sleep and then I repeat.

Life has not stopped, and yes you guessed it. If you are reading this you are still here and if you are still here and you have the urge to see new destinations, make new friends and sample what the world has to offer. Then, go and see it all for yourself.

You are never too old to book that first adventure, change how you view the world and see it all with your own eyes.

To the younger generation, the world is not a scary place, it is a place filled with sights to be seen, people to be met and beers to be drank.

Until next time, I hope you enjoyed and thanks for reading.

Cheers,

Doddy