it's you that keeps me going

28th of April 2024

Siquijor, Philippines

Where do I begin... It's been a tough week. Today is Sunday. I arrived last Thursday but I was only really here this Thursday. In a place where it's so hard to stay with myself, the only option now is to be nobody else but myself.

This is for you: Tomer, Lucie and Emma.

Yesterday I found my way back to me. Thanks to you. Thanks to us I think we all found each other again.

Yesterday comets collided and burst into light. Yesterday, life once again showed itself from its best side. It brought us together, to this place at this time. The stars aligned and whatever was in the air, it brought our hearts to our tongues and we healed each other with our words.

Emma you turned my whole summer upside down. Or maybe even more than that? You reminded me once again why I love traveling and why I want to keep being a traveler. As soon as I saw you, I knew that you would be someone for me. How often does it happen, how often does life bring people together, people like us? That instant, immediate feeling of well-being and security - I know that every word I say is safe with you. I know I could tell you anything and I would keep your every word protected in return. We had two days together. Two days, just 48 hours, but it's enough, it's enough to feel connected for the longest time. Enough to make plans and find a home. Enough for honesty and vulnerability.

So yesterday we all had an ear for each other, eyes for each other, a shoulder for each other. We shared our food and our fears. Yesterday the environment was nothing more than a container for our being. Siquijor the setting for people who need each other and finally admit it.

Lucie, you are so right. We were all just barely scratching the surface this week with no one really sharing what they're feeling. Us all together in a place where everyone wants nothing more than to connect. Where everyone wants to grow, learn from each other and experience moments of infinity. 

In this place, everyone is surprisingly quiet. Do we all have so much fear in us? I, for one, know that I have it. The fear of rejection has been omnipresent these days. I would never have thought that you felt the same way and that is the best teacher. You have surprised me time and again with what you say, what you do and everything you have already done. With how much you seem to just be you, not letting anyone see how hard it sometimes is. There must be a thousand thoughts running through your head all day. I hope you know that you now have three more people who have room for you.

And every time I look at you Tomer, I just have to smile. How good people can be, how kind, how warm, how pure. You can do all that and keep it in such a wonderful balance. You can do all this without taking the light away from others, no, you give it to them. You shine and pass on your light to everyone and everything that surrounds you. You sing and you laugh and you are. Hopefully you'll be in my life for a long time to come.

Getting to know you - it is a reflection of what traveling is for me. It embodies life, indeed pure life in the form I like best.

Together we are unbeatable and alone we all too often feel defeated. If only we all realized more often that everything, really everything, is better when we do it together. If only we didn't forget all the time that we are good and that we are all here for the same reason: we all just want to belong, to feel safe and secure.

You have taught me once again that I still have so much to learn. Learning this won't be the last time, no, it's more like another beginning. To realize that I still have so much way to go, that there is still so much space and emptiness. For what? For the creation of experience, love and life.

How beautiful, so pure and honest. Nobody planned yesterday and nobody expected it. I now realize how accustomed I was to superficial babble.
It's impossible to quantify our yesterday, it's impossible to repeat it. I hope it doesn't make you sad that this moment has passed.

We all constantly think things should be better, should be different. We strive for more and hardly anything is enough. But our yesterday was all that and it was more. I hope we all remember it for a long time to come. I hope it stays with us all as a reminder of our humanity.

We all suffer and we all struggle with something. Something that we keep hidden from the outside world all too often.

Too ashamed to bring it to the surface.

Too afraid to acknowledge it as a part of us.

I hope it stays as a reminder that while talking to each other is kinda the scariest thing in the world, at the same time it is the only cure for our loneliness.

The most beautiful things come to you unexpectedly. They arise without notice. They build up, reach their high and after they have subsided, nothing is as it was before. The sensation has passed, but its after-effects are forever manifested in our bodies.

I can be no one but the person I am. Still I constantly take away my value by not taking myself as I am.

I devalue myself.

Some things can be changed, others cannot. At a certain point, I am simply who I am. This is probably a divisive issue, but I believe that you can never completely escape the nature of who you are. No matter how much you want to.

A lot of things are buried deep inside us and they can't be changed overnight. We can't make anyone up, not even ourselves.

While we are all different, I want to work on accepting that this includes me as well.