I | One Way

22/9/22

After living in the United Kingdom for nearly 4 months now, tonight finally marks the beginning of my journey to Europe for the very first time. An overnight bus from London to Paris with nothing but a ruck sack. It hasn't really hit me until now that this is finally happening. I've dreamed of doing this adventure to Europe for a long time now, and it will soon become a reality. Dreaming of being on another adventure whilst being on one already! Truth is I don’t think I’ll be able to travel for as long as I’d like to this time round, yet I’m still so excited to explore what other countries have to offer!

Before I go any further, my name is Liam. I'm a 26 year-old man from New Zealand, and I have been living in England for nearly 4 months now since departing from NZ on a one-way journey.

I felt like I wasn't getting anywhere back in New Zealand. I felt like I was in such a rut. I just didn't know what I wanted and just had this massive sense of unfulfillment there. I let things like my "failures" towards potential careers get the better of me. I didn't hack it with a Media Production degree 6 years ago, and the same towards a building apprenticeship over a year ago now. I knew fairly quickly that neither of them were for me, but I feel like I gave them a good shot before truly coming to those conclusions. For some reason I just absolutely hated how I just didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. I used to hate going to gatherings surrounded by tradies, doctors, lawyers, architects and graphic designers who'd ask what I did for a living. "Oh, I just climb in several ceilings a day and service ventilation systems" as for the majority of the last 5 years I worked for a Ventilation company. I used to hate how I felt like I didn't have a story worth telling to anyone at these kind of events. More importantly, I didn't have a story I was proud of. All I wanted was to tell a story that I was proud of. There's not even anything wrong with what I was doing, I just wasn't proud of it, I wanted more. I didn't even really care what other people thought of what I did for a living, I mostly wanted a good story to tell for my own satisfaction. 

At some point over the last year I began going to counselling. I was also on YouTube all the time looking at those cringey click-bait titled self-help videos, I was reading books on how to better myself, I was listening to podcasts. All these things, where sure they might have improved the way I looked at things a little bit, but they still weren’t providing me with the answers I really wanted or needed. It was like I was waiting for some sort of magical awakening to dawn on me to make me realise what I wanted through consuming all of that. The main things I really learnt from consuming all of that was to wake up earlier, eat better, work-out more and nofap. I don’t think I actually followed through with those teachings very well either if I recall. Over time I had let all this negative energy of mine overwhelm me. I'd have multiple tear ups and be involved in needless arguments with my then-girlfriend, which just added more weight to an already sinking ship. I truly started to realise that I had issues after having a couple of tearful breakdowns in front of some of my best mates when we’d get out on the piss, breakdowns over weird and insignificant things triggered by what was going on in my head. Since I've been an adult I usually struggle to break a tear even at the most appropriate and understandable of times. I even used to wonder if I actually had a heart sometimes because of that. So once that kind of thing started happening frequently and so effortlessly, I really knew that something had to be done. I didn't want people to see me like that at all. I felt like I hated myself and who I was for such a long time. "Why can't you do this?" "Why can't you understand this?" "Why don't you have the confidence to do that?" "Why are you so fucking useless?". I was being drowned by these types of thoughts since I was about 16 years old as the reality of the world slowly started to come for me. I’ve never had much confidence in myself towards anything my entire life, as if that wasn’t obvious to those of you who know me well, but this just spiralled down to a whole new level. I realised nothing would change if I wasn’t willing to find change, a real BIG change. I always knew there was this light at the end of the tunnel, I just didn't know how to get there for a long time. 

My life wasn't all that negative though, my family are great and despite me being an awkward, reserved, shy person I've always managed to do well with making good friends wherever I go. I never felt alone even when I wanted to be alone, I'll put it that way. There was so much I still loved about my life despite all I’ve just said. This always made me feel guilty about feeling the way I did about myself. I had nothing but hate and disappointment for myself from the inside, yet I had so much to love for the outside. 

By all means, I do not plan on using this blog as a platform to post this kind of negative bollocks. I personally don't even support posting feelings like that out publicly. I suppose I just wanted to reveal a bit of insight as to what prompted this shift across the world. I know for just about everyone I told about this move that it was a very sudden and an out of the blue one where I didn’t provide much of an explanation as to why. I didn’t even tell a lot of other people who I’m close to about it as well. I’m not sure why, I suppose I didn’t want to make a massive deal about it. 

I posted those feelings out publicly because the person I was talking about before is merely a shell of what he is now. He's still very much the same person. He even lets the odd old demon bother him now and then. I think he even knows that the whole career choice dilemma will come back to bite him at some point soon and put some pressure on him. The difference for him now is that he's realised there's a big old world out there. A world much bigger than his one, where there's just so much to see and learn. I feel like he's grown and learnt a lot through his experiences on this side of the world, even when the real adventure hasn't begun for him yet. He now knows he has to grab life by the fucking throat to get what he wants instead of complaining about what he doesn’t have and what kind of person he is.

So why England? What's the appeal towards staying there? Why take so long to go anywhere else? Truth is, I'm half English myself as my Mother was born and bred here. That is literally the only reason why I decided come here of all places. Some weird part of me felt like I wouldn't truly know myself until I visit the other half of where I'm from. I didn't know what I was coming to, I didn't know what to expect, and I didn't even make any effort to do much research on this country at all. All I knew was that I had to do this. Nothing ever had felt more right than when I booked my flight back in March 2022, this weird sensation was just flowing through me after I processed the payment for my plane ticket. Part of that sensation was thinking "What in the actual fuck have you just done?", while for most part I felt this incomparable level of excitement. I just knew that this was the beginning of something awesome, a feeling I feel as though I haven't had in a long time, if ever at all.

"How long are you gonna be there???" "I dunno"

"What do you plan on doing there???" "I dunno"

"Do you plan on coming back at some point???"  "I dunno"

I’m a guy who usually doesn’t know what he wants or just doesn’t really care and easily resorts to the “I dunno” when asked what he wants. The answer I use so often would usually piss me and other people off, but not in these instances. The fact that I had no idea what the hell I was doing. The fact that I didn't have a plan, truly fucking excited me. It scared me a little, but it excited me. I really had no idea though! I didn't even have time between booking the trip and actually leaving the country for me to organise getting my UK Passport, while not essential beforehand, it would have made preparing for life in England and beyond much easier than applying for it over there. I’m happy with how everything worked out in the end though, I wouldn’t change it. I’ve gotten to know some wonderful people pretty well across the country, including family I had never met before all because of how everything has panned out. I crashed on my cousin and her family’s couch in Hampshire for over a month when I first arrived to the country, and they’ve been so awesome and supportive for me and have shown me around a lot. I hope I can somehow repay the favour properly to them one day. I’ve got to see my great-Uncle and Aunty for the first time in over 10 years a lot too. The last time I saw them in NZ I wasn’t sure if I’d ever see them again. Now I see them quite a lot, which truly means so much to me. After that I stayed with a host family for over 2 months in North Devon. I didn’t know what to expect from staying with a family I found on the internet where I had to do some odd jobs for them to earn my keep, but that couldn’t have worked out any better! I’ve made good friends for life through that experience. Now because of that I plan on finding a job and a place in North Devon when I return from Europe, that’s an exciting thought to come back to. The fact that I was looking forward to going travelling and then returning to England to work and live felt kind of bizarre, but I love how I’m looking forward to so much now.

I made a bit of vulnerable post on Instagram a while a go similar to this one, but in a bit less detail. When I wrote that, I remember just being on a super high and feeling so good - I just had to let it out somehow. Something about that post made me discover that I enjoy writing my experiences down like that. I’ve kind of always written things for myself for years now, but nothing quite like that. I was so nervous when I posted that story too, I literally thought I was crazy when I did it. But another part of me felt so glad that I did post it, and it was well received. Someone I hold close to me even told me that I should write like that more, whether it was just for myself or publicly. At first I kind of shrugged that idea off a bit, but after some time and some consideration I thought why not, I’ll do both. From there I decided I am going to document my travels and my experiences of my travels and what my life is in like in the UK. I won’t go in to massive detail about what I see and what things look like, the pictures will do the talking for that, rather I plan on talking about my thoughts towards these places and what I went through. This here is the first entry before I write on my travels of Europe. Feel free to tag along for ride!