The thunderous roar of aviation echoes through the airport gate waiting area. A canceled flight has forced an additional six hours of layover time leaving me stranded in the Brisbane airport. Having navigated the snafu whilst still allowing myself to arrive at my final destination (Jakarta) tonight just before midnight, these series of unfortunate events reminds me how being one’s own architect is a valuable asset. I’m very much looking forward to this break in adventure touring. The day before yesterday having marked one full year of traveling to successfully launch and push my brand while transitioning my career path by joining the two hobbies I most adore: travel and writing. My emotions have felt numb these past weeks having been deprived of consistent sleep for too long. Far too aware of the fall back exhaustion has on my psyche and my physical self I relish the notion of the ‘food for the soul’ days in my immediate future.
My thoughts are interrupted by the flight attendant announcing our decent. I inhale deeply and glance out of the cracked window shade to see a blazing red and yellow sunset on the horizon. My eyes adjust to the light and I ponder out the window, thinking not much at all, before gathering my things from the netted pouch of the seat in front of me. Disembarking the plane I bob and weave between the too slow crowd and B-line for the toilet. I have to beat the line there if I want to jump the queue at customs. Customs… Always such a long drawn out process of shuffling like cattle through unnecessarily long lines. The busy streets just outside of Soekarno-Hatta International airport remind of the congested motorways of Bangkok. A poor city made up of stark contrasts—slums and high rises—that has a poor infrastructure and is as overcrowded as anywhere else in Asia. Spa advertisements that one can mistake for business signs hang from car garages and abandoned lots, trash is everywhere, putrid smells of raw sewage flowing into river canals flood my olfactory and food vendors slinging ingredients until the wee hours. Oh, South East Asia how you win over an exhausted girl’s heart.
Having a tough and emotional day so I decided to hit the gym then treat myself to a full body massage. As this very strong, very tiny Indonesian woman drags her elbows across the length of my back I tense as she approaches my lower back. I try to breathe through the discomfort as she works through the tension and knots found there when the metaphor of it all pops into my head as loudly as the sound of the muscles shifting and popping under the weight of her hands. I think on how I tense in those moments of uncertainty, breath my way through the tension just to tense all over again at the next challenge. How I still try to fit a mold of what should be vs what is. How I force things that shouldn’t be and hold onto those dead horses long overdue for burial. Before I chastise myself for this evidence of humanity I congratulate myself instead. For being flawed, for aspiring for more, for doing the uncomfortable and unexpected despite both internal and external expectations.
Then a strange thing happens—I begin to see all the beauty in failure. How crucial failure is to success and I remind myself why all those years ago I became addicted to failing forward, to hearing the word no. Then I say thank you out loud and the masseuse responds assuming I was talking to her. I find gratitude for the motivation behind wanting to hear the word “no” and I humbly await the increase of the word “yes” undoubtedly on the horizon.
