Friends I haven’t met yet

Everybody wants to travel when they are stuck in a sad, dull place. I assume.

Most days I find myself alone in my room, lights off; silence deafening yet somehow comforting. I let myself drown in the black hole I created for myself.

Most times I think about why a man plays many roles.

Most times I think about how many friends do I really have – if social media is an indicator — then how many of them have I shared (real) experiences with.

I see pigments of myself from the people I meet. May it be the way the Vietnamese lady happily rides her bike, or the way the vendor carefully arranges my order. Maybe i wished to be that person I just took a photo of. The way I see and define others becomes an extension of self, the ghost of my other selves.

Traveling to Vietnam last July is like a temporary bandage over permanent scar. It’s my way to escape reality – the reality that I have too many regrets, too many missed opportunities and missed connections, and too much time wasted. So much so that the idea of myself is haunted by the ghosts of the other selves I might have been.

And this is what travelling does to me: it gets me to meet people outside of my circle and lets me understand myself better.

Travelling clears my head. Travelling is a hope for happiness. 

And so, this is to the friends I haven’t met yet: that I may put a name to your face. And not be reduced to merely just a portrait I have once taken.

But for now, I am back to chasing to fill the void.

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