Fri 20 October 2023

A lot has happened over the last few months, so rather than a big catch-all post, I'm going to do a few posts over the next few weeks.

The last week or so have been my first 'in the office', so to speak, since March. As is patently obvious to anyone who's been within earshot, I'm going to try freelancing for a while. This has involved me getting boring life and company admin stuff set up. But, I digress...

One of the major things I've been working on with myself is the concept of asking permission. I grew up in a very permission-based setting. That's not unusual of course, but I'm used to having to ask if I can do things -- as I went out into the Big Bad World, it has often been a very internalised obstacle for me. I feel like doing a thing might be nice, and there's no real obstacle aside from me missing having a voice sometimes telling me "No". That voice can sometimes feel unkind and capricious, and it's only recently I've recognised it as my own. In the meantime, I'd gotten very good at self-denial.

So, to work on this a bit I planned a longer trip for myself, on the bike. This would involve a wee bit of structure (the first 10 days or so were an organised trip with a group) and then another 3 weeks or so of just doing what I want. What it was supposed to turn into was about 5000km of going where I like.

It mostly got there. It was a pretty nice jaunt around some mountains in Italy, Slovenia, Austria and etc. (The photo is me! It's from Passo Gardenia in Italy, in the Dolomites). The latter part was interesting, since a lot of the structure fell out (I was supposed to go to a wedding in Sardinia, but ended up getting covid instead). I spent the last few weeks getting to a point where I was just chilling out, making my way randomly. Get up, figure out a cardinal direction, book a place to stay, and go.

While I'd like to say that this was a relevatory and life-changing experience, I'm only going to say about 80% of that :-) It was pretty amazing, but I further discovered that it's okay to not want to be on a mad adventure sometimes. I was definitely done by the end of the trip -- which is another good thing to know about myself. But, It was an interesting exercise in knowing what I'm like, rather than forcing myself to be like something.

I have a tendency, when I get into things, to really get into things. I'm still trying to figure out how much of it is for my personal happiness and joy in experiencing things, and how much is performative.

Like many other things that live inside my brain, it's a work in progress :-)

Category: Log Tagged: log life motorcycle brains