Learning to put myself first

So many years ago, I made plans to travel alone in Asia. I was very excited to do this and also a little bit nervous. I thought it was a challenge to plan and do everything by myself, but I really wanted to do this.

And then came my wonderful friends and family, just being worried about me and they’d say, “are you sure you want to do this alone?” And “isn’t it more fun and maybe safer to do it with someone else or in a group?”

I was actually fine doing it by myself and I was looking forward to it. But the voices kind of got into my head and then when a friend told me that another friend of hers is going to Indonesia around about the same time, she suggested, “why don’t you two travel together?”

So I said “yea, that’s got to be fate”. I should travel with this guy who is around my age, a boy that she studied with and I have met once or twice.

So we both flew to Bali and met up there and started travelling together. At first it was OK, but I soon realised that he had problems. He was very very negative and complaining about a lot – this was bad, that was bad, society doesn’t accept him… He was really troubled and I tried to help him again and again. But I could tell as the weeks went by, he made my time and my first time travelling ‘alone’ much worse. I just wanted to enjoy and be positive and see all the beautiful things but he just kept pointing out what’s not good and what’s bad about life in general. 

Then I made a decision which was really really difficult for me at the time, that I do not want to keep travelling with him but I do want to travel by myself as I had planned from the beginning. I want to just enjoy and see the good things and not have someone else tell me how bad everything is. So that’s what I did. I said goodbye to him. I said, “I do not want to travel with you anymore. This is really hard for me, but I am sure I cannot help you. So have a good time, and see you…” more or less.

And then I had the best time. I had an amazing couple of weeks afterwards, where I met magical people and had crazy experiences and just grew so much and learned so much. I was just very very proud to realise that travelling by myself is just so much more fun than with someone else who might give me safety or make me feel less ‘alone’ or whatever. 

I was the opposite of lonely. I was meeting so many people and having the best time of my life.

by Sinja Martens

Featured photo by Jessica Papini.
Supportive comments are welcomed.

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