Two Years Later: How Travel Changed My Life

Two years ago, I landed in Sydney, Australia at 6:32am the day before the FIFA Women’s World Cup Final. 

I touted it as a life changing trip. In my soul, I needed it to be. My life needed shaking up. Things could not keep going as they were. For so many reasons. Everything needed an overhaul. At first, it was supposed to be just a big, fun adventure on a whole new continent (not two). In the months leading to, changes were coming in big and fast. Even to the trip itself.

I saved for two years to go to Australia on my pittance of a writer/floral designer salary with the dedication of a FIFA World Cup athlete. Originally, I was supposed to go to New Zealand and Australia. I booked a round-trip ticket to Sydney. Reasons [a long story I’m not even going to attempt to tell as it’s unimportant to this story] made that trip unfeasible. So, that round-trip, non-refundable ticket did my head when my plan changed two weeks later post-booking. 

As far as scheduling went, never again. It was pristinely planned and yet, what fuckery. It is so hard to explain except it was chaotic and a lot and didn’t make a bunch of sense as a whole because it was planned piecemeal as things were thrown at me, which drove me insane. So it was elegantly inefficient, and I would change nothing because spoiler alert it was the trip that changed my life. 

New Zealand exited stage right; Cambodia entered center stage. Australia went from the thing to the bread in an intercontinental, bucket list sandwich. 

At eleven, smelling jasmine in Cambodian jungle ruins became the number one thing on my bucket list, and it never left. Some weed induced googling turned up a round-trip ticket to Cambodia from Sydney cost all of $372. Booked it. 

At seventeen, I decided I would only learn to surf in Australia; though many opportunities arose, I stuck to my laurels. To be clear, I have been stubborn and pretentious for ever. Though not my proudest traits, they have landed me some pretty epic stories. I had to pick between the Great Barrier reef and The Great Ocean Road. I’m not made of money nor do I have scuba certification (yet), so the ocean one, though iconic, seemed less fun on my “I can afford to rent a car” budget. Melbourne became my return destination. Fortuitous.

Circling back to Sydney. 

By 8:00am, I had dropped my luggage off, made a friend I’d tourist with for the day, changed clothes, and done a photoshoot in front of the Sydney Opera House because how else will all my internet friends I’ve never met be jealous of my trip if they don’t see how cool it is right away? By day two, I crossed learning to surf off my bucket list at Bondi Beach. Iconic. You can feel the pretension, can’t you? Fun! Bucket list! But not life changing. I hopped on a train, showered, and made my way to the World Cup. Where I met up with friends and cheered on England or Spain, it really didn’t matter because the US was so far out of the running, we stopped caring. 

Fast forward a few days, plane rides, and a bus, I was watching the sun rise through tears and sweat, illuminating Angkor Wat. I was living the dream I had dreamed for 21 years. I was doing it myself, on my own terms, with my own money. I wandered through ruins, made friends I still follow on Instagram, and even facetimed my two besties like a true millennial. I took photos of nature colliding with history and some more self-portraits. I traversed paths monks walked centuries before. There are temples and moments I remember more clearly. Structures I found more peace in than others. 

There isn’t much about that day I don’t remember. In my bones, I knew this was the place my life would change. I’m not a religious or even particularly spiritual person. There is something in the air at Angkor Wat. You breathe in magic and peace. I felt like I was finding who I once was, who I wanted to be, and who I could become. I started dreaming new dreams and remembering old ones.

Prasat Ta Keo was a temple I knew very little about. By little, I mean, my tuktuk driver stopped and told me he’d wait for me and I read what I was seeing on a sign. There’s a long, jungle-lined pathway leading to the temple gates from the road. As I climbed the endless steep stairs with my deep fear of heights and nary a handrail in sight, I was wondering if the first terrace I came to might be a stopping point. Could this temple be worth it? The steps were tall. Yes, the temple is tall, but so are the steps. They were knee high, and I’m 5’10” with long legs. It was leg day. Lez go!

The views and architecture are equally worthwhile and impressively breathtaking. Literally. The numerous steps will take away your breath. I powered on all the way to the top. Turning around, a safe distance from the edge, I looked out at the jungle surrounding me. Towering above everything with moments of ruins poking through the canopy, I was the tallest thing I could see for miles. The only person anywhere near me was the security guard, scrolling tiktok. The ethereal beauty was not what made Ta Keo life changing. 

As the nonreligious, nonspiritual human I am, I made an offering, kneeling down in prayer. Whether I believe my prayer is falling on the ears of Shiva, a version of meditation, or just practice in stillness, I will pray. 

There I was, making my offering to a Hindu God, lighting some incense on my knees. Praying. Except my prayer went a little bit like: 

“I don’t know how to do this. This is my first time Hindu praying. What do I do? I don’t know what to do. What am I doing? What do I do? What am I even doing? I don’t know what I’m doing. I do not know what I’m doing. I don’t know what I am doing. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

And then… I started sobbing. Body shaking, soul deep sobs. 

For all intents and purposes, there are not many people who will argue the fact I am a real adult. I have been on my own for fifteen years. Paying taxes, making doctor’s appointments, raising dogs, traveling, buying toilet paper. I can and have been doing it. With a range of successes. But, I feel like a kid in a grown up body cosplaying adulting. I don’t feel like I know what the actual fuck I’m doing. 

I
Am
Wing
-ing
It. 

I don’t know what I’m doing. Not just in prayer but in life. So I lost my shit at the top of a Hindu mountain temple for Shiva. Because what am I doing with my life? What am I doing after this life changing trip? What was the plan? How could I hinge my entire emotional, psychological well-being on a bucket list trip and expect everything to be AOkay after? Whether it was Shiva, the universe, or my own conscience, I realized I didn’t have to know what I was doing. I didn’t have to be anything other than what I am. What I’m doing might not be perfect or even good, but it got me to Cambodia, to a temple in the sky. I might not be a good adult like all the other adults I know, but I was doing okay. My dogs weren’t dead. That was enough. With a few more belly sobs turned sniffy-hiccups, I stopped crying. I had no sense of purpose at this point. Honestly, what the fuck even is purpose? But, I knew, deep in my bones, I would be okay. I’d figure it out. I’d servive. I always had. This is what this trip was about. A life changing moment was just had. In an unexpected place in the most unexpected way. I would be okay. 

Sitting up with a renewed sense of calm but not purpose (that had not revealed itself), my ears started taking in sound again. Just in time to hear the security guard’s phone start playing the chorus to Katy Perry’s Roar:

“Like thunder, gonna shake the ground
You held me down, but I got up (hey)
Get ready ’cause I’ve had enough
I see it all, I see it now
I got the eye of the tiger, a fighter
Dancing through the fire ’cause I am a champion”

The timing could not have been more symbolic or strange. I will forever remember Katy Perry in that moment, which is not the woman I would have chosen. At least, she is a bicon, and the song is a bop. It could have been worse. Like… Muskrat Love by Captain and Tennille. 

I, unfortunately, decided my first Hindu prayer would be a fun thing to take a video of. So I have this panic attack/meltdown on video for posterity. 

This panic attack prayer was a pivotal moment in my life changing trip. I though it was the moment.

But, it was not. It was the precursor, the prelude, the prologue setting the stage to open my mind and heart to the future I could not see coming. 

Fast forward another two days, I’m having an incredible three-course meal on a remote island off the coast of Cambodia with an outdoor bath tub I still drool over. Having spent my day hiking, calling to monkeys, playing in a storm, kayaking in the ocean, reading in a cabana, making friends, and preparing to splishy-splash with the bioluminescent plankton after my sunset, ocean-view dinner, I was living my best life. When Truly, Madly, Deeply by Savage Garden came on. I’m a 90s baby, okay; this has nostalgia written all over it. I swayed and couldn’t help but think “I would come back here with my wife someday.” Never in all my years of solo traveling have I thought a place or moment could have been bettered by the company of another person. (I am not apologetic.) That moment, I did but only if she was also cool enough to be my wife. Which is exceptionally strange because I was really looking forward to being a single role model for young lesbians everywhere.  

A few hours later before the power went out, my future wife liked me on Hinge. 

(To clear things up the two previous sentences intersect strangely. I was on another continent… I hadn’t been dating. My friends, particularly Sabina, convinced me it would be so much fun to date on vacation. I’ve done it before: a great way to see a new place from an insider’s perspective. Also. I have dogs and a life I loved. Meeting my person on the other side of the world is ridiculous. And yet…)

That irritating roundtrip ticket taking me back to Sydney by way of Melbourne is the only reason I had three days to meet and fall in love with my fiancée. The only reason I am writing this in a wine bar in Melbourne, waiting for her to meet me after work for a drink and oysters before we go home to our dogs and cat to make dinner. I live and love in another country on a continent on the opposite side of the world because I went on a life-changing trip. 

My life changed the moment this trip became a decision. Every moment leading to that trip, every chaotic plan, each tall step up Ta Keo led me to this life. I did not know it. I could not have known it. That adventure was the start of the biggest adventure of my life. 

The bread of my bucket list trip sandwich has become the country I call home. I didn’t have much time to explore it then. Now, I have all the time in the world. Because I fell in love.