It didn’t seem much real until I had the VISA stuck inside the yellow pages of my passport. A right of passage, an official confirmation that feels much more real than the 1 200€ siphoned off my bank account for the plane ride. Funny, uh. Money is just a mean, not an end. Moments like this one tend to remind me just how little importance money does have.
D minus 3. And the realisation is starting to sink in. I’m going. I’m leaving. I’m doing this. I couldn’t start packing a bag until that thought had been cleared in my mind: it’s time to go. I’ve been planning for weeks, but unable to do anything about it.
Now is the time, though. Time to fit 2 months into 60L and less than 10kg — that’s the challenge anyway. Under 10kg is a necessity, below 6 would be quite a feat. We’ll see…
The thing I’m most curious about this trip, is how much I will learn from it. It’s Sunday, 3 days from my departure, and I’ve already come to a life-enlightening realisation about possessions. I am just realising now how much space all these stuff have been taking in my life, and how useless the vast majority of them are. If you think really hard about what you actually need, even considering comfort and entertainment, that eventually amounts to very few items. Very. Few.
Yes it’s hard to pick only the essential clothes… if you’re drowning in your closet. What a perfect time to sort it all out, when the tide retires. Everything non essential, non practical, every piece of clothing I haven’t worn in the season should go. It’s old useless stuff weighing me down. They give me the impression that my life is here, in this particular location, when really, my stuff are. A vast majority of useless stuff.
My life is wherever I decide to take it. Wherever I decide to live, not wherever I store some stuff. Nothing like a very thoughtful session of packing to remember the essentials.
13kg. I’m 3 kilos heavier than I wanted to, but I’ll lose some sunscreen, soap, mosquito repellent and some cheap (but heavy!) diving gear along the way, before heading to the volcanoes anyway.
If it becomes too heavy to carry around, I’m sure I’ll have no trouble parting with some more non-essential stuff. Even within this restricted I-desperately-need-this selection. Because necessity is a relative notion, after all.
Uh. Who would’ve thought?
A Summer in my Jammies 