never going home.

Hey friend, 

I’ve made a strong decision for my life…

That I am never going home.

I am never returning. 

I am never going back to the place from which I came. 

See, its the common experience of all travellers to leave and to have a great new experience of life, and of themselves. Something is awoken which is beyond anything they have experienced before. 

Maybe it happens during a gap year. Or in a student exchange program. A summer in Italy, spain, Greece or Portugal. A type of separation from all they knew, and an opportunity to walk into the unknown for a while. 

And great life ensues. They feel themselves like never before. They feel life as a great opportunity. They receive new possibilities. And this goes on for a while. 

But slowly all this time away begins to wear on them. They miss their home, their friends, their family, the comforts of the known. It’s not always easy, and its difficult to sustain at first- especially if you don’t know what is taking place inside of you.

And so they eventually return, with intentions to leave again shortly after- but it very rarely happens.

This great invitation into what life is, is forgotten.

Now it becomes just another collection of beautiful photographs and memories that lives on their feed. And they go back to living whatever life they would have lived if they never left at all, with a few extra stories to tell at parties. 

The experience of travel, quite often is an invitation into the unknown of yourself. It’s an invitation into a new experience of life beyond what you have ever known. Into new possibilities of what it means to be you and what it means to live.

They thought it was about a place, or movement or people or experiences- but it was truly all about them. It was a glimpse into what they are, and what their relationship to life could be.

What is the point of how this great awareness, to receive this great experience, only to return to what you were when you left? Its masterbation. And its a waste of time. The only purpose it then serves, is a nice idea to think back to, and to romanticise, fantasise. 

Personally, I have made a strong decision, that I will never return home. 

But the decision has nothing to do with geography, or the country I choose to live in. 

I will never return to what I was. I will never return to who I was when I left. There is no going back to that. Too much has been awoken, too much has been revealed. That there is no returning, no retreating from this new place. 

Perhaps one day I do return to the gold coast, australia to live full-time.

But I will never go home.

-Jay

Jay Topp is a 24 year old writer, marketer, film maker & self-led educator originally from Australia, now based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. You can see his films here. Instagram here. And his business website here.

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