I am absolutely convinced that some people will only ever view the urge to travel as wanting to escape or run away from reality. I sit here with flutters in my chest, blood pumping, that familiar restlessness that has hit me over the last couple of days – come sooner than I expected, this time. I don’t want to go away because of hating my life – I love vast swathes of my life and many of the tiniest moments that make them up, I’m very happy, in fact – I’m not in search of anything, unless you count being in search of experience. I always want that – to know how everything feels. I think I want to greet or acknowledge my other possible selves. It is a strange thing to feel that you are made of so many components, and that you have scattered those components around the globe. There are parts of this planet that I genuinely feel I have stayed in; that to drop in to a particular country or revisit a recent place would be akin to catching up with myself; I see myself still in these places, getting on with things, living differently and looking up in a garden, casually, upon my arrival, face to face with myself, saying – oh, look at these flowers I planted; look how I started a band. It is these possibilities I chase or want to revisit.

It’s not just about myself though; it’s about this enormous, preposterous thing we live on; this earth. There is so much of it, even though it’s finite. It makes me feel a bit unwell, the idea of knowing what is there and not being able to touch it, taste it, smell it, walk around in it. I want to know what it feels like to walk around in Japan, live in India for a while, open a window in South America. The world is piecemeal, like me, and its colours and sounds weren’t meant just to be known academically.

There’s a sort of pain too, in the places I’ve promised myself but not touched down on, yet. I feel possessive about places, almost; I know they’re mine, I just haven’t got around to them yet. I feel I am possibly late, or delayed, not yet having taken a gift.

I don’t care about the landmark tourist sites, or instagram; I just want to dot around. It’s a collage of café scenes, of walking around busy streets, myself a sort of haze; no fixed intention; the relief of freedom.

Part of the problem is that I don’t feel very located. I am not fixed, or certain of where I am; I don’t actually see this as a problem; I was told, once, that it was a gift to be so untethered to certain planes, to forget so easily that I have a body; but it can be confusing. I see myself (my inner self portrait; my inner image of what I am) as completely amorphous, wrapped around the whole world, hovering over it, drawn to certain colours. I don’t know if this is normal; other people don’t often speak of this. When I remember my place – my town, my life, my bedroom, the blanket underneath me right now, I often feel a sort of laugh inside me. I always feel life is a game, that I’m only playing. I’m not really any of the things, or in any of the places. I enjoy it. I am lucky.