when i wanted nothing but to leave

the painful and beautiful parts of solo traveling in the UK and Ireland

I’m starting this draft sitting at PHL, awaiting my connecting flight to SFO. I suppose my trip isn’t quite over, but it’s very quickly winding down—the sterile airport lights a stark contrast to the warm lights of my hotel room in Dublin.

This was my first time solo traveling, and if I had to sum up my trip in a single word, it would be important. I experienced moments of elation coupled with moments of deep pain, often in quick succession. This is going to be a heavier post, I think—mostly candid recollection and reflection. I’ll save the light airy travel tips for another time.

Through all the things I experienced while traveling, the lessons ultimately distilled down to two things:

• Listening clearly to my intuition never led me astray

• I am capable of self-soothing (but maybe I don’t have to do it alone)

intuition

I traveled abroad to chase starling murmurations, and I did just that. I drove for hours sometimes to get to roost sites, occasionally coming too late or needing to move my car multiple times in a single location. I knew that if other people were around, I’d worry for their boredom, perhaps cutting my bird-chasing short for their sake. Being alone enabled me to do this on my own time. I wonder in the future, when I travel with others, how do I maintain this sense of ownership over my desires? Do I peel off on my own? Do I trust that others can do the same?

This also applied to my hunt for bookstores. Over two weeks, I went to around 25 of them. I don’t think everyone would understand why I’d want to do this—after all, aren’t they all the same after a while? Yes and no. They each had a distinct character, but more importantly a sense of familiarity. Books smell like books no matter where you go. When I felt lonely or homesick, a few minutes in a bookstore set me right.

I pulled off the roads to visit random tourist attractions. I popped into little shops while walking around. I acted from whimsy, I meandered at my own pace. I think this whole trip was a bigger metaphor for the question of how can I more often act from whimsy and be patient with myself?

I got pretty lost in rural Ireland at one point, having quit out of my navigation while I was out of service, and therefore was not able to get back into my navigation. I felt some panic for a couple minutes, but I intuited which roads to take, looked at my limited signs to get me to a town, went until I got reception again. I was delighted to see that I had been lost in the right direction, not losing much time off of my route.

self-soothing, or not

There is no easy way to say this, so I’ll just rip the bandaid off—by far the biggest challenge of my time abroad was that I was sexually assaulted on New Year’s Eve in Edinburgh. I was reading the preamble for my December Every Brilliant Thing List before drafting this, and how sad that made me feel.

I’m improvising! I’m not totally sure yet what I’ll be doing tonight, but I’m going to challenge myself to find some form of connection no matter what I do.

How misguided that challenge feels now. I think connection was the last thing I found.

Just hours before, I was spending the afternoon/evening with the first familiar face I had seen all trip, a dear friend Aidan. The juxtaposition of back-to-back interactions that epitomized care and carelessness is painful to think about.

[I actually just needed to take a lap around the Terminal because of the ache in my throat from thinking of this. Sometimes just walking is a valuable tool.]

I am not interested in going into the details of what happened. I want to acknowledge it now so I can get on with reflecting on all of the other parts of my trip that are not assault-adjacent. I am not interested in this defining my entire trip or how I feel about solo-travel at large. But it feels disingenuous for me to say, “wow yes my trip was amazing!” while burying this down.

I was in Galway from January 2nd until January 5th, and most of it was spent in a half-dissociative state. I kept more to myself than I had while in Edinburgh, or interacted with people while putting on an act of being totally fine. I did a walking tour of the oceanside areas and found myself losing the thread of conversation. I sobbed at the wheel, listening to Ben Howard’s The Burren while driving through the Burren. I stayed at the Cliffs of Moher for 10 minutes, finding it anti-climactic. I bought myself another kalimba, partially because I wanted a 17-key one anyway, but mostly because I yearned for the gentle plinking sounds, a lullaby I could play myself at night.

I was grateful to have had Aidan to discuss it with, as well as a new friend I had made in Edinburgh, but otherwise I walked it alone. I didn’t tell my husband Charlie until January 3rd, and I still haven’t told anyone else back home. Part of me not telling him came from my not wanting to burden him—that I didn’t want him to be worried for my safety for the remainder of my trip.

But the bigger reason came from my desire to see if I could sort through this on my own. To not immediately go crying to other people and instead to sit with the hurt, the anger, the confusion, and to prove to myself that I can keep moving forward. And I did that for 3 days until I knew I had the words to articulate what had happened to Charlie. He has always shown up for me as I’ve wrestled with my PTSD, and he did the same in this situation. I am so grateful.

I’m reminded that assault happens everywhere you go, whether it’s San Francisco or Edinburgh. I’m reminded of how difficult the decision is to take legal action or not, the worries about getting dragged by lawyers and made to relive everything, the awareness that it is perhaps too convoluted than you are willing to navigate (four countries worth of involvement—an American girl, an Australian man living in England, the assault itself happening in Scotland). I am opting to not put myself through that. I am opting to try to make peace with it and move on. Since this is very sadly not my first rodeo, I know that there is no correct way to proceed, and that whatever I choose is valid.

Driving across Ireland to Dublin on January 5th, I was worn down. I did not feel excited to spend 5 more days away. But this is where community came in.

The first thing I did in Dublin was go to the Guinness Storehouse with Paloma, my dear friend and coworker who happened to be in Dublin at the same time as me. Hugging her was a salve. Laughing and moving through the world with her was a salve. Being able to tell her about the assault and having her hold me while we’re in a fucking beer museum was a salve. My day with her and her friends and family helped me feel a little less alone.

Then the next day, I saw Chris, who I had met in July (and I wrote about here). I didn’t speak of the assault with him, but I really needed the familiar face, especially one as kind as his. I relished meandering the streets and parks of Ranelagh with him, going with him to buy a cappuccino and a croissant for a homeless man that he said he always says hello to when he’s in town. Of discussing songwriting, mixed-Asian identity, his move to Berlin. I really needed it.

I took myself to the seaside town Howth the next day. I got whipped around by the wind walking to the lighthouse. I sang “Seaside” by The Kooks over and over again under my breath. I smelled the salt in the air, ate delicious seafood in a small restaurant that played exactly the kind of music I like. It held my homesickness at bay.

I went to The Ruby Sessions. I saw front row and let the music soak into me, laughed with the emcee as he publicly gave me shit for journaling. I spoke with him and the photographer, and they told me to keep and touch to come back to perform sometime. I think I’d need a lot more courage to do that, but I left feeling so inspired.

I meandered the National Gallery of Ireland with a bartender from the hotel I was staying at who offered to show me around, as it was one of his favorite places. We laughed at how many dogs we could spot in the paintings, discussed composition. I taught him about r/birdsforscale. He hyped up his favorite painting the whole time, eyes sparkling once we came to it.

I took myself out to Matsukawa, an 8-seat omakase restaurant. The two servers wore kimono, and they sat me right in front of the sushi chef. I spoke with the three of them in Japanese, and they encouraged me when I faltered or felt embarrassed. I almost wept tasting sea bream. I bowed profusely as I was leaving. I got drinks across the street with two Irishmen from the restaurant, who gave me a ride back to my hotel. I got drinks with a new friend who brought handwritten conversation cards, making me laugh and laugh with prompts like “The weather (cold)” and “Inflation.”

By the end of my time in Dublin today, I found myself sad to leave. And how beautiful is that, when just a week prior I wanted nothing but to leave. I started with a trip filled with beauty and I ended with a trip filled with beauty.

They’re starting to board my flight now, so I’m going to put this out into the ether and hope there aren’t too many spelling or grammatical errors. There’s something that feels urgent to me to get this out now. To get the pain out of my system so I can fall soundly asleep in San Francisco tonight, to wake up tease through the other parts of my trip and to return to life as normal.

Despite experiencing something traumatic on this trip, maybe one of the worst things you could have happen while solo traveling, I’ve come away from it feeling more sure of my resilience, more certain that there is beauty in this world, more eager to travel again soon, whether solo or not. And what a beautiful thing that is.