Yesterday was the first time in a year that I cried my balls out for no apparent reason.

Okay, it wasn’t really nothing but it started off with me not knowing what the hell I was sobbing about. I was all ready to head out for a party, hair, clothes, shoes and all. All of a sudden, a huge wave of unexplainable dread and sadness took me over like a tropical flash flood. Caught off guard, my tears started to fall uncontrollably and try as I might, I couldn’t stop it. I was sobbing so hard like a baby in the middle of my room. Instinctively, I closed my doors so my parents wouldn’t hear me. I was an absolute mess, a contrast from my gathered-up self seconds ago. My mind tried to make sense of it all, as my physical need to cry overtook my body. What is up with me?

Ever seems I came back, I was experiencing a growing emptiness in my heart. I felt lost. I thought it was because I wasn’t able to adapt back to the life here. I thought it was because I found new love for other lands and people overseas. I thought I was too good for this place. I thought, I thought and I thought… I gave myself countless reasons to validate my inability to be happy here. As i did so, the size of the void in my heart grew. I slowly changed. A shadow, of a shadow of my former self. I became more insecure, fearful, whiny and complacent. I was also indulging in unhealthy distractions to try to fill up the void that I was unknowingly creating. I was going down the rabbit hole filled with my own lies and excuses.

And it hit me while I was sobbing away. If I really am a true traveler of the world as I like to be known for, shouldn’t adapting and assimilating into changing cultures be part of the game, my own country included? I was lying to myself. I was running away. Beneath the glammed-up image of a seemingly cool vagabond gamely exploring the world whenever and wherever he feels like it, I was a scared little boy inside, running away from home, away from reality. All the arsenal I’ve been building while traveling for so long came to naught when I got back home. I was preparing for the wrong battle all these while.

Perhaps I did discovered something important while traveling. Perhaps it was life-changing. Perhaps, even all-inspiring. But I realised discovery does not equate to understanding. And I wasn’t able to fully understand the beauty of all that I have learnt and experienced while traveling because there is still a clot to my heart. A clot I haven’t removed before I left Singapore.

I was still hurting from my previous relationship. Not to be mistaken that I haven’t gotten over the person in question. I have. But I haven’t gotten over the break up itself. I was still hurting, over the lost of all my hopes and dreams, invariably tied to the relationship that I was in. So much was invested into it. I was ready to settle down. I was ready to make it the rest of my life. I was ready to die with it. When it all ended, I shut down. I thought I moved on but what I really did was lock it up somewhere deep in my heart under the guise of faux-bravado. It has been simmering over the whole year of 2014 and had finally reached to a boil last night.

As my last tear finally fell and the streams on my face has turned to stains, I knew what I had to do. It is time for me to step out into the light again.

“Until you get comfortable with being alone, you’ll never know if you’re choosing someone out of love or loneliness…”