Walk this way

For most of the day, in spite of actively looking for motivation, I could not gather the desire to stir from the hotel.  I slept for several hours after breakfast, went to afternoon tea served by the hotel in honor of the queen's birthday, puttered around on the internet in search of things worth going out for, reorganized my luggage, and returned to the dinner buffet, quite nearly as ravenous as I'd been this morning.

After eating thousands of calories and sitting for hours killing time, I finally just put on my coat, went outside and walked.   I walked with no destination in mind, meandering through the streets, turning toward things that looked interesting and then, having investigated to my satisfaction turned back again.   I walked at my own pace and with my own purpose, in just the way I'd always wanted to travel before self doubt induced me to book a tour and be led about by others at a breakneck pace from dawn until the witching hour every day.

I mulled over my experiences of the past few weeks, where I'd been, what I'd seen and done.  Much of my misery, it seems, has been induced by my lack of control over my situation.  It's not the places, the people, the hotels or even my illness, as much as how little say I had in how my problems were managed.  At home, I am the master of my own destiny.   I spend 8-ish hours at work, for no more than 5 days in a row, and then I come and go as I please.  If I'm sick, I call in and stay put and sleep.   I take road trips when I want to, and I decide how often to stop and get out of the car.   I can choose my own recreational activities and I can keep the company I want rather than being thrown together with an ill-fitting crowd of people and having to get along.  This trip was more like a mobile workplace, three straight weeks of a job with no days off, where I could never escape my colleagues and where I had to take orders from strangers and follow their timetable, even when it was clearly detrimental to my own health and wellbeing to comply.  In the long run, it was better than not taking the trip at all, and I've learned some useful lessons.  Still, I feel compelled to try to come back, to do it my own way, to feed my own mind and soul without worrying about structure or checking off a set of boxes or the things other people say I ought to want out of the journey.  It's far better to travel the way I live, and slow down to find my own brand of enrichment and fulfillment rather than just struggling to keep up.