Past, Present & Future
16:20The weirdest thing was the weather.
For two weeks, I had been in colder temperature: building snowmen as we were singing a song out of Frozen, side-stepping heavy snows on the stony stairs and icy roads, pressing my boots into the snow. Sipping piping hot black coffee before the drive to Tbilisi International Airport and flight to Istanbul and Cairo was an eerie reminder of thinner coats and slightly warmer weather that awaited my arrival.
I had spent the previous fortnight on an adventure in northeast Turkey and Georgia, from the night train to hitch-hiking, we did all that without any worry.
It wasn't the perfect weeks, or even the most carefree of vacations. We (Kak Mira & yours truly) came down with food poisoning from some traditional Turkish cuisine that clearly were not agreeing with our stomachs on that time. Kak Mira injured her ankle exploring the higher-up of Erzurum and I was down with fever while waiting for our bus or dolmus from Sarp to Batumi (The other side of Georgia-Turkey Border)
I spent the days thinking about my life at current home, then trying not to think about my homesickness of Malaysia. I've been thinking about what I wanted to change and about what I've missed and about how I wished that I could just shed all responsibilities and rent payments and sandstorms; thinking about things that I loved about my life in Cairo. There was a lot of very sober, uninterrupted time to think it through.
Kak Mira turned to me with a smile and asked, "Do you feel different now? Are you happy?"
The answer, as I thought it over, was yes. I'd broken out my fourth or fifth sweat while hiking up the mountain to get to the ski resort and my bag was dragging me down, but deep inside, I was actually happy. I loved my life.
Yet, as I basked in the early morning sunlight on the peaceful ride to Tbilisi International Airport, I realized that I hadn't exactly released the past or shed the anxiety despite all of that inner-searching in the middle of our epic adventure. I wasn't returning to Cairo a brand-new girl.
But I was adding the two weeks of carefree, winter boots adventure into my own personal identity: fourteen days of our body struggling with constant movements, the mind do some thinking and listening some more, waking up to sunrise hoping for a brand new journey and finding each other company was the ultimate comfort that you could have.
Even if I wasn't ready to let go of the past, I could make it as positive part of my present and create a better future, I hope.
Goodbye Turkey and Georgia.
Hola Cairo.
0 comments