people | On My Canvas

What I Learned By Staying in Touch with My Ex-Boyfriend

After struggling for a year, I broke up with the man I had wished to spend the rest of my life with. Then I flew to the other end of the world. In that foreign land, I picked up a million tiny parts of mine and weaved them again. Then I breathed life into that lifeless me. After a year, I returned to the old city and happened to run into him.

I thought I had moved on. And I had. I am with someone else now and putting in all the hard work a relationships needs. I love my current partner most earnestly.

My mother called me thrice at eight in the night. Editing an article, I thought something had happened and picked up the third call. And then after some small talk about my writing and if I was ever going to take up a job, she said she wanted to talk about something.

As a thirty-year-old unmarried woman in India, I recognize this something, like dogs can sense tsunamis, for at least five years now. This something — without any exception — is marriage.

To humor her, I asked what did she want to talk about. She said she always worried about me and often cried because she cannot do anything else. That she didn’t know what my life plans were. That nothing made sense. That I must have been lonely. Didn’t I like having a family? Was there anybody? That why couldn’t we — mother and daughter —share everything with each other.

These sentences stumbled out of her mouth as she choked.

in lake titicaca living a nomadic life solo traveler priyanka gupta

Why I Travel

Since I started traveling relentlessly for the past few years, my friends, family, and everyone else started asking me that why do people travel so much, what did I do for six months in Chile traveling alone, what did I see, how did I feel in a country where I couldn’t even speak the language, how did I manage to travel for so long, and how did my family react?

They say I’m lucky I get to travel so much.

I smile. I lecture everybody that they can travel, too. I ask them why don’t they take a sabbatical and go? I elaborate on why traveling is important even though no one might be listening.

People laugh. They shake their heads as if I had asked them to do the impossible. They say it is not easy. What would their parents say? Their boss won’t allow. They are settled with their partners. Traveling would be too expensive.

They think these are unique problems. And they don’t get that why do people travel so much.

As I travel a lot myself, I understand why people leave their homes and travel around the world. In this poetic essay, I will tell you why do I travel and why traveling is important.

Once when I was in the sixth grade, I asked my sister to make sandwiches for my school picnic. A string of events occurred, and she declared I was selfish.

I realized I was more interested in getting my work done, rather than the feelings and responses of other people (understanding emotions is a must read). The acknowledgment that I was a bad person and people knew about it was suffocating. I understood that I would be left alone if I did not change.

I consciously tried to become a better person by caring for other people and by showing that I cared.

Why I Travel

Why are relationships important?