*This piece was originally written in 2015 and was recently dug up from an old hard drive, begging to be shared again.
Travel, just go. Open your eyes and experience your life.
For Zo, a year ago:
You will cry on the plane.
You will be stuck outside for hours unable to get into your apartment and no way to contact anyone.
You will waste a day drawing in Hyde Park and memorising the names of roses.
You will drink bad coffee in mugs as big as your head.
You will read every inscription on every park bench you see and make up lives for the people who sat there.
You will find solace you didn’t know existed walking through cemeteries.
You will learn that every natural instinctive you have for directions is wrong.
You will find peace in crystals at museums, and you will feel less alone with the knowledge we are more deeply inserted into existence than the course of a single life would lead us to believe.
You will eat so many sandwiches from Tescos, and they will be cheapest and best you’ve ever tasted.
You will walk across the road at Abbey Road Studios.
You will dream about living in a Hyde Park Mansion.
You will get so lost.
Every single day.
You will lose yourself, but you’ll find yourself again.
You will stand on the prime meridian and feel like the whole world is based on this single moment.
Time will stand still.
You will relive Notting Hill and try to climb the fence to a private garden.
You will find so much joy in Disney stores.
You will have the best curry of your life for five pounds at a market.
You will see that Shakespeare play you studied in school at the Globe.
You will drink cider in the park on the first sunny day of the summer.
You will see the Queen, purely by accident!
You will actually be touched by Marina Abramović.
You will spend all your money on afternoon tea and feel like the baddest bitch around.
You will walk for hours with your whole life on your back.
You will stare at the sea for days, watching the sky change colour and the waves crash, and you will realise that everything you can see is only the tiniest fraction of the universe.
You will feel so small and insignificant.
And free.
You will walk along stunning white cliffs dotted with the crosses of those who couldn’t see the beauty in them anymore.
You will sit on the front seat at the top of a red bus and write and write until everything makes sense and nothing will be wrong again.
You will walk 16km for the best chips of your life and be kissed by a Romanian.
You will live for the smiles of strangers.
You will lose yourself again in every church and chapel you find and pray for the faith to live while you’re alive.
You will stay inside for two whole days watching the rain pour in Birmingham.
You will breathe art.
You will take selfies with strangers to make loved ones at home smile.
You will plan a year on a yacht that you will never actually go on.
You will find a note on the ground telling you to let go of anything holding you back, and you will.
You will watch le Tour begin from Trafalgar Square and catch up with it later in France.
You will make it back to Paris and feel the whole world within your bones.
You will listen to Joni Mitchell in a park and breathe.
You will watch the white sky over grey roofs and terracotta chimneys.
You will eat the cheapest brie and baguette and drink the cheapest wine from the supermarket and it will be the best meal of your life.
You will kiss Simone de Beauvoir’s gravestone and leave your Metro ticket for Satre.
You will meet the loves of your life who came to see you, and travel with them to a little town in the south of France, and feel like you could watch the sun set for one hundred years.
You will drink so much good wine.
You will find the mossy water fountain.
You will light candles in churches and love will consume you.
You will see flamingoes.
You will shop, and eat, and drink, and wish that every moment could be just like this: you and your best girl talking shit and laughing.
You will ride bikes and see wild horses and eat Michelin-starred salads.
You will follow your parents beneath fairy lights in the evening and only feel happiness.
You will find yourself in Spain buying bottles of wine for two euro.
You will hear the legend of Eulalia and vow to name your daughter in her memory.
You will eat so many tapas and drink so many cervesas and fall in love with Barcina for the second time.
You will follow some people around just for an adventure and be led to a hidden ruin in the middle of the city.
You will live Gaudi’s Barcelona.
You will be blinded by the depth of light.
You will be stuck on a broken down train in the middle of Spain in 40 degree heat and when you turn on your data to breakdown to your boyfriend he will drunkenly tell you the fun he’s having out in Melbourne and you will question every decision you’ve ever made.
But you will make it to Valencia and be blown away by the parkland in what was once a river.
You will climb on Gulliver.
You will see modern and old in a way you never thought possible and long for that same kind of cultural identity.
You will think maybe you should have been born in a different place in a different time.
You will stroll the Placa de Espanya for hours, reading graffiti of love and longing, decoding regional symbols exquisitely painted into tiles and watching the light change.
You will breathe in the life around you.
You will get lost in castle gardens.
You will be so tanned when you take off your sandals it will look like you still have them on.
You will cry.
You will mourn your old life because everything will have changed and there will be no going back now.
You will cry again for Robin Williams, and although you just made it to Lisbon you won’t be able to leave the house for fear of falling apart.
You will wonder why you came at all and wish that you didn’t.
You will forget how to breathe.
You will wish for someone to come and save you.
But you will go out for Portuguese tarts and wine and you will see the blue of the sky against pale blue and yellow tiles and you will learn to breathe again.
You will make it to Porto and it will take away that breath.
You will see the sun dazzled on the sea and know that nothing will ever sparkle this much again.
You will walk wide, paved streets, watching the terracotta roofs dividing sea from sky.
You will be so lonely you will treat yourself to a three-course meal that you can’t afford.
You will read.
You will read so much.
By some miracle you will hitchhike to Madrid and be born again into art.
You will spend so much time in galleries you will be forced to leave at closing time before realising the whole day had passed.
You will go to so many Starbuckses.
You will gorge on churros and be unable to move.
You will gorge on pinxos and be unable to move.
You will realise not only that life is always going around you, but that so much life is always going on around you.
You will buy all the things from a closing down Sephora.
You will visit the Palacio Real de Madrid and plan all the things you’ll have in your own palace some day.
Some days you will be sad.
Some days you will be so sad you’ll travel to a tiny town in Scotland to try to get out of the sadness.
You will find a new life in Scotland, housesitting with a Jack Russell.
You will hike in the fresh sun to the top of hill overlooking the region and you will remember once again how to breathe, and you will remember once again freedom.
You will get lost following the river and take panicked hours to find the house again.
You will bake bread and chat to friendly bus drivers and take baths every day and read and learn yourself again and again.
You will walk across acres of flowered fields with a happy dog and smile to yourself.
You will feel like you are the only person who exists and you will cry at how beautiful the world is.
You will be brought back to life in Edinburgh by a guardian angel who will join you all over the highlands.
You will meet scraggly cows and singalong to Rod Stewart and John Mayer on endless bus rides.
You will explore Loch Ness and try to find the monster.
You will be freezing and overwhelmed on Culloden Battlefield.
You will find endless castles and count the Yeses and No, Thankses.
You will run to the top of a waterfall and carry a mouthful of water all the way back to the bus in order to be granted a wish by fairies.
You will learn how to drink whisky.
You will see the train track from your favourite film and it will be the most surreal moment of all.
You will learn about where you family is from and feel roots connected to your soul.
You will eat haggis and dance away any doubt at a highland fling, because the world may come to an end but love and music will last forever.
You will be met in Berlin by your favourite person in the world and they’ll follow you anywhere.
You will never have known freedom and support like this.
You will follow the Berlin wall and not be able to believe how recently it was pulled down.
You will drink black coffee and visit markets in Kreuzberg and believe you could live an artist’s life here, with no furniture but a record player and a phone kept in a suitcase.
You will drink all the beer.
You will find peace in gardens and learn as much as you can in museums.
You will climb towers and watch over the whole city, people barely a speck below.
You will roadtrip to Dresden, to Prague, to Cesky Krumlov, and you will sing and laugh and argue the whole way.
You will feel like you are in a picture book, like this can’t be real life.
You will feel all of the luck in the world, and endless sadness that all the people you love can’t be here too.
You will meet a Czech man whose smile is unfaltering and who knows exactly where you’re from.
You will spend an afternoon learning you love dark beer and drawing your love.
You will make it to Munich and dress in a dirndl and eat pretzels and drink beer all day and ride a rollercoaster.
You will sleep in a van overnight.
You will get to Amsterdam and immediately be high getting off the tram.
You will dress up in fishnet tights and body paint and see Lady Gaga and cry when it’s over.
You will dye your hair purple.
You will feel like Charli XCX.
You will go the Hague and see the Girl with the Pearl Earring and smoke too much weed with a table of laughing strangers.
You will get back to Paris again and remember everything all over.
You will take photos of people taking photos of the Mona Lisa and wonder why people can’t just open their eyes and be where they are.
You will have so many chevre chaud salads but they still won’t be enough.
You will sleep on the balcony and toast the Sacre-Coeur goodnight with champagne.
You will watch the sky change for days and days.
You will daytrip to Versaille and long to have your very own ballroom.
And then you will be alone again.
You will land in Croatia and not be able to find your boat.
But when you do you will find a group of travellers that will feed your soul.
You will fall in love with two Canadian fairies and they will impact your life for longer than any of you will realise.
You will read and dream and think and write while you sail, and then each night you will drink and laugh and play.
You will feel old, and young, and alive.
You will feel like anything is possible and time is just a concept.
You will climb and swim and sunbake and summer will never seem to end.
You will cut your foot and get your drink spiked and break a wall and wear a pirate hat all night.
And all to soon your little Croatian family will go their separate ways.
And then you will be in Bosnia and every day your heart will ache: at bullet-riddled buildings, ruins, hundreds of gravestones all marked from the 90s.
You will sit on top of a hill looking down at Sarajevo and write a song that will still get stuck in your head months later.
You will bus overnight to Lake Bled and believe in fairytales again as the sky and water become one.
And then somehow you will be back in London.
You will go to every theatre performance you can and spend all your money at Primark and Harry Potter Studios and you will have a Butterbeer on Privet Drive and not believe that you’ll be going home in two days.
And then you will be home.
And everything will be the same.
And everyone will still be having the same conversations, and it will be so baffling after all this time.
And everything will be different.
And your life will be changed forever.