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Ah, to be far far away from everyone and everything…

It is very rare for me to be away from my phone. I keep it on me always, to take pictures, to communicate with others who may be far away from me. I had the privilege of starting off my month taking a bit of a break from the buzzes and pings by taking a little trip with my partner. The first night we got to our hotel, we got ready for dinner and I consciously left my phone behind in the hotel room. The first couple hours I was quite anxious, after a while I just got used to it. October went on by easily, but its end came in like a massive titanium wrecking ball. For all of us I think.

I won’t touch on anything of significance here, political or otherwise. My rage over many current events will have its moment at a later date. For now, I want to recount to you my way of achieving some peace of mind lately.

During this recent getaway, I tried to spend my time either focusing on the people I was sharing it with or in silence. Quiet is something you can’t really fathom as “relaxing” if you’re spending your days moving from noise to noise. You wake up to an alarm, you listen to music or a podcast on your commute to and from work, you come home and unwind with a movie or a comfort show, and if you’re anything like me you sleep with something playing in the background. What we don’t realize in doing this is that our brain gets overworked, so much so you actually start damaging different neural connections in your brain. Regardless, old habits die hard. My trip wasn’t entirely screen-free, I did however manage to write and process a lot of recent nagging thoughts and feelings.

It is my belief that we do not teach children how therapeutic writing can be. One may say there’s not enough time in a curriculum for it – I say let’s make time. As I looked off at what was a Windows screensaver-like green hill, it was instinctive for me to grab my notebook and start noting down thoughts. Once it was all out of my head I relaxed into the silence for a little while. I guess that could be considered a form of meditation… though in my eyes meditation is much more focus-based. It’s like the Olympic sport of rediscovering yourself and diving deep. Relaxing to me means just “vibing”. No thoughts, no ultimate goal, just existing.

At the time of writing this, I have returned to a reality where “just vibing” isn’t an option. Not with my family, not with my friends, not with anyone who is close to me. There is too much going on at the moment and not enough time to deal with it all. Of course this also means everyone wants to talk. That result is always ever thinking about everything and never truly switching my brain off. It turns out the very opportune trip simply provided me a few days of breathing room before all hell broke loose. Even so, something I let no amount of stress take away is my love for my partner’s really random everyday quotes (and my love for him in general). The way this man makes me laugh til I sound like a hyena while he’s just existing in a state of infinite rage against the world… there is nothing like it.

It is the small, everyday things that make life bearable in the hardest times. We may not be able to pull the social plug of our life completely and truly disengage, but there is strength hidden in the everyday joys of life. That great cup of coffee in the morning, the endless overheard bits of random conversation as you walk down the street, the kind strangers that – almost like in-game NPCs – seem to be around you at the right time to smile at you or have a polite exchange or shyly look away into their book of side-quests. I love being a polite stranger in someone’s otherwise shitty day. It makes me feel better and sometimes even takes me on very interesting adventures.

On my way back from my getaway trip, I was alone at the Eleftherios Venizelos airport… the reality of what was ahead for the next months was creeping up on me very quickly. I reluctantly picked up my luggage and walked to the metro station. Out of the several automatic ticket counters, I happened to pick one next to a perplexed girl. She wasn’t a tourist surprisingly, just had been out of town a long time and didn’t know which ticket to buy. “I’m sorry”, she tapped on my shoulder and said to me, “I’m trying to go to Neratziotissa, do you know which ticket I should take?”. I directed her to the train ticket booth, she thanked me, and I thought that was the end of it.

I bought my own ticket a little bit later and headed to the ticket validation gates, and there she stood, again confused. She didn’t see me, I saw her though – anxious and fidgety. I tapped on her shoulder: “You go this way, look.” We validated our tickets and on the walk to the platform she thanked me. She was a nurse-turned-waitress (not an uncommon thing in Greece) coming back from working seasonally on an island for a few months to make some money. She grew up in Kalamata and hasn’t really acclimated to the public transport. We waited an hour for our respective trains, exchanging some personal anecdotes, and then we each went our own way. That one hour of random conversation helped me disengage from my life for a bit.

Being a kind stranger to someone can be really soothing because there is no history, no explanations, you don’t even necessarily need to introduce yourself. Kindness is a universal busy-mind pacifier. Sometimes finding it for yourself can be hard as we are our own harshest critics. If all crumbles around you one day, I do hope you remember this: disengage, find your strength, and pick up where you left off. Burdens get heavier if all you do is wallow in them.

Maybe consider writing about them if you haven’t found your way to stop your overthinking.