Let Your Mind Wander

Nothing about that moment seemed real. Not the saffron-robed monks strolling purposely unintentional along the beach, quietly absorbing alms from the villagers. Not the rugged-looking dogs whose playful antics took them to the water's edge toppling over one another in the waves. Not the sun's sudden but not overly dramatic appearance at the horizon, altering the sky's hue gently so as not to cause alarm. And definitely not the fact that I was up at sunrise!
Three days ago, I had been taxiing down the runway on a plane bound for Thailand, crying on the phone to the man I had just ended things with, having realized that I would not be able to be present in my travels if my mind was thousands of miles away. Three months ago, I had purchased the one-way ticket as a light at the end of a tunnel of depression I worked my way into due to my mother's illness and being frighteningly unaware of what I wanted to "do with my life".
After weeks spent reading travel stories in a tea room to distract myself from the fact that I had to face final exams, I finally called the only other person I knew who had traveled abroad, who insisted that yes, people actually could go backpacking in places other than expensive Europe and also insisted that I take her pack with me when I decided where to go.
Touching down in Bangkok with no idea where I was going was quite nerve-wrecking, but exhilarating. I found two other foreigners in my same position- straining their necks to look over the heads of the crowd in chaotic Khao San road- and asked them if they'd mind me tagging along to look for hotels with them. I ended up traveling with them for a week, trekking in the jungle and visiting their friend from uni.
So now here I was, at dawn on a tropical beach, one of the only souls awake and definitely the only foreign face in a place I knew next to nothing about and had come to on a whim that wasn't even my own (I had my friends vote on Facebook for my destination). Far away from any responsibility... and also any sense of belonging in the world I had had up to that point.
I had never felt so disconnected, so unknowledgeable, so lost in my life.
And all I could do was sit and wonder at the incomprehensible- that I finally had deep, personal access to unbounded beauty. To the strange. The new. I was done reading about the adventures of others. I was making my own.
I was free.
That moment, five years ago, I still remember as the happiest of my life.
I haven't stopped traveling since.