Usually I talk to my family about once a week, mostly with my parents and sometimes with my sisters and friends. Yesterday someone very close to me called and first we talked a bit about where we are at the moment, how she liked her recent holiday on Zanzibar and so on. And then, just as the phone connection started to get really bad, she told me that she and her partner decided to get married next year. Oh wow! I was almost instantly torn between being really happy for her to be in a loving relationship and being incredibly sad for not being able to be with her in that moment. For not being able to hug her and see and feel the excitement instead of listening to it over the phone.

For a moment it made me not want to do this any more. I wanted to be at home, with my family and friends and not be so fucking far away on the other side of the planet. I wanted to be with my friend and her partner and celebrate with them and not have to deal with visa and route planning. Thoughts of quitting flickered through my head. I considered trying to cycle / travel faster to be able to come home in time.

But then, thinking of having to rush to get through all the countries in between here and home doesn’t feel right at all. It’s not going slowly, it’s not compatible with stopping when something interesting turns up or when you need a break. One of the things I like most about our trip is the open end. While that doesn’t mean that I want to keep on travelling indefinitely it means that our plans are to evolve organically during the process.

So I’m torn between a happy and a heavy heart and don’t quite know what to do yet. Being away is hard sometimes.