Traveling and The Pursuit of Happiness

9:09 pm Athens, Greece.

I'm all alone on my hostel room balcony, lighting up yet another (!) tobacco cigarette even though I should really quit smoking. For the love of God. Oh, well..

This is the fifth room I have changed in the last few months. After successfully escaping from the US and (thankfully) deciding not to overstay my visa in the last moment (although I almost married an arrogant American guy for papers and doomed myself for a minimum of 2 years of phony, horrible marriage), I flew to London out of pure boredom. I didn't wanna go home because doing so would feel like a defeat. I don't know, I really didn't feel like going back to Croatia.

I stayed in London for a full month and half, packed my 1 baggage of clothing and 10 times more of my 'dark night of the soul' baggage, then impulsively headed to Athens. Okay..what am I doing with my life?

After fulfilling my American dream and having some crazy bacchanalian time in LA (but also getting to know its shallowness in the wicked, black pits of Hollywood), I was drawn to my Balkanian roots and felt like I should go back to the basics to, hopefully, learn the truth and meaning of my existence. I'm a silly girl and I stubbornly continue to move around, knowing all too well by now that location doesn't change a thing. But well, at least there's more truth in the ancient churches of Athens than in boujee-crowded Starbucks' of LA.

Right, all alone in Athens, with no friends besides a few (a bit too) friendly bartenders from my hostel's bar, I started to wander around the city. I tried moussaka, I tried souvlaki.. climbed Akropolis, visited Pathenon, and asked myself ''Now what?''. I was all alone in London, I'm all alone here. I desperately need someone to have a coffee with, but I'm sick of small talk with new people and random acquaintances. I maybe wanna meet someone, fall in love and have kids, but at this point my lifestyle is a bit too impulsive and bohemian to settle down. I can't stop traveling, but I'm tired of traveling. I wanna build a stable career, but I'm sick of how the thought of success is luring my ego into thinking it matters. I don't wanna live from the place of my ego anymore, I'm eager to be truthful and nothing else. But what is truthful? I don't know how to deal with all of these so I keep traveling.

I keep asking myself, 'Why am I always so full of contrasts?'. God, if you exist, please make me more rooted and satisfied, send me some peace through that Moon light that I'm staring at right now, that ever-exisiting Moon that feels like Home to me. Going Home is all I ever wanted deep down, but home never felt like Home, and all the other places never felt like Home either.

So out of confusion and despair I started going to different protestant churches every day here in Athens (although I was the biggest church hater in my teens and brilliantly planned to egg attack a church with my equally agnostic and blasphemous friend). I don't kiss altars and I'm not religious whatsoever (as opposed to those crazy Greek grandpas kissing reliquia in the midst of coronavirus) but damn there is something truthful and all-knowing in those 4,000 years old marble crafts and sacred mosaics. I cry every time, makes me feel like Home is closer and Love is closer and Truth is closer. And that's all that ever mattered, to every single human on Earth.

After living in Italy, Portugal, Mumbai, LA, London, and Athens, I feel like I'm coming back to myself. I went to LA to feed my ego, I traveled to distant places to ''get to know myself'', I studied Finance because of the status. I guess it's good that I did of all this, for now I see it's all bull****.

(Let me roll another disgusting, yummy cigarette)

Ok, successfully poisoning myself..where was I? Yeah, so don't get me wrong, I am very grateful for all of my experiences and I had great times in my life so far, but I guess what I'm trying to say is that the main meaning of those experiences was just to experience them in order to realize that they're not the point. Determining myself by a successful career is not the point, and living in the best city in the world is not the point, and traveling around like a hunted maniac is not the point. So what's the point (and where does Happiness live if not in LA or Athens or London or Rome)? Maybe the Point can't be put into thoughts and words, maybe it can only be felt. Maybe it's not supposed to be verbalized. One thing I know for sure is that I was so damn happy escaping my unlawful presence and a life of an illegal immigrant in the US, stupidly dancing by myself in my 8x8 London Airbnb room, listening to cheesy and low-quality Turkish music that I adore, and most importantly, having no expectations from myself whatsover.

But my happiness didn't last for too long (since I'm ungrateful and entitled), routine started to kick in, I had no company, so I did what I do best. I ran away, without saying goodbye to that nice, 4'9' Indian guy from the restaurant next to my apartment, without taking my last walk on the friendly, autumn bathed streets of London, a city that received me so well, like all the others did.

Now I'm in Athens, but it's only a matter of time when the restless North Wind from the movie Chocolat will blow in and sneak into my bones, and I'll pack my little bag again and go to my next destination, chaotic Istanbul. I will do it quietly, one chilly, windy dawn, without bothering to take my last look at the Parthenon, without looking back, without wishing to ever come back.

The road is the homiest home I have ever known, maybe because it's always changing like I am. Crowded airports and uncomfortable hostel rooms feel like home, but so does this deep longing, feeling that I get when I'm staring at the majestic hills and starry church ceilings. I'm searching for my constant, for my one truth that I can't describe but I'm lucky to feel it in some blissful moments when the Moon is full and the night is peaceful. Cities that are passing by my crazy eyes are not it, but for sure they're helping me get closer to what IS it, and further away from ego and all the phony things in life. At the end of my lunatic nomadic path, which may be in a year or 10, the last lesson that my annoying companion Wanderlust is going to teach me is that it's not the meaning, but merely a very useful tool. And I will be happy, staring like a fool at the Moon as I always do, feeling the peace that I never had.