Letting go pt 2

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I think it's really starting to hit me that I am leaving very soon. Maddie and I spent the morning buying some bits and pieces for the trip, and a charity just came around to collect some of my furniture. My flat is looking emptier every day, and the cardboard boxes holding my travel bits grow constantly. It's all coming together at a rapid pace. Every day I give away pieces of furniture, paintings, objects, ideas, as well as pieces of myself. Some of these things I've had for years and it feels very peculiar to let go of them. Freeing in some way, but sad in another. It's a bit like a rite of passage, a mixed process of relief, grief, doubt, anticipation and exhilaration.

Yesterday I cancelled my mobile phone contract, and that felt very strange - I've had this contract for at least ten years. On the upside, I gleefully called the council to inform them that I wasn't going to be paying council tax anymore - for a long time! 😊

The hardest bit is seeing my friends every day and knowing that in a couple of weeks I will be gone. Knowing this makes everything a lot more intense, and also makes me appreciate all the wonderful people in my life so much more. There's nothing like a bit of melodrama, I know! It feels like another layer being stripped away, a type of never-ending letting go and rebirth, like in the story of Inanna's descent to the underworld. Such changes and getting back to basics are always good in the end, but being in that process, even if self-chosen, can feel it bit difficult at times.

Melodrama aside, I do feel very excited to see it all coming together though. Thanks to the very patient Igor at a Russian travel agency, I've pretty much managed to book my Trans-Mongolian train ticket to Ulan Baator. It's only taken about two weeks of almost daily e-mails! There's a brilliant website for train travel, www.seat61.com , which is an invaluable resource for train travel around the world. I think it would have been very hard to get my head around this epic trip without it.

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