The Road to Home: Life after Travelling

 As I embark not on a plane, but on my MA, I feel

a new sense of beginnings, amongst a world of chaos. 

I recently began typing up the diaries I had kept while travelling in Thailand and Vietnam,

and it got me wondering about how we are all searching for the same thing in

life: a sense of belonging. 

I remember landing in Bankok airport, suddenly feeling as though I

belonged. It was a very new feeling, and I couldn't recall feeling that

sense of ease and happiness anywhere else. 

My expedition in Vietnam didn't quite go according to plan. I should technically still be there,

but it seemed as though the world had other plans...

Yesterday was my first day on campus for my Masters degree. As I came out of Peckham Rye station,

I suddenly realised that we don't always need to travel hundreds of miles to find 

the culture fix we might want, or for an exciting new life abroad that we all dream of.

I noticed that I was walking through an African area. Street-markets, nail salons, tiny 

boutique clothes shops. You know what? I suddenly felt right at home, in Peckham high street. It's a 

very odd location for a popular drama school, but I loved that it felt like I was

in a different world once more.

I remember a lecturer at university on my first degree telling me that 

you'll always know you're meant to be somewhere if you 'feel' right in the building itself. 

(Or something along those lines!) 

As we were given a tour of the very complicated one-way 

anti-COVID system of the building, 

I felt the same sense

of ease that I had felt back in 2018 in Bankok airport. 

Today, I've been straight on to my studying and I'm feeling that 

same buzz of energy from those two years ago.

So where am I going with this?

Well. I'm currently reading Augusto Boal's 'Theatre of the Oppressed'

 to get me started with my reading. 

He looks at a variety of philosophers and gives a breakdown of how they all view the world,

 and how politics shapes the world around us (in particular how it shapes the arts) 

Aristotle says that we CAN achieve happiness, not just by 'being', 

but through our decisions and actions. 

What I've learned on my therapeutic courses is to TRUST YOUR GUT. 

If something doesn't feel

right, don't do it. Take the right course of action, and you WILL find your

sense of belonging and happiness. If it feels right, go for it. 

In a world of chaos, lets listen to our guts and trusts our instincts. 

No matter how scary your decisions may seem, you WILL make the right ones eventually, 

because your instinct will tell you so.

My instincts have definitely told me- and I hope yours will too! x