I’m Not Tired of Travelling, I’m Tired of Leaving

In some distant, not-so-distant future, I will grow old and my white hair may be the least of my worries. My body, the very one I’ve been dragging from continent to continent ever since I was a clueless, eager teen, through pregnancy and all the way to what I hope is a slightly wiser version of myself, may simply be too tired to travel.

I picture myself as a patched-up backpack then—broken clips and zippers, fabric thinning at the bottom, many stories to tell whoever cares to listen, but definitely not a checkable piece of luggage.

I guess I’ll ask a kind soul—maybe Mark won’t be glued to his phone by then?—to carry me one more time to someplace I have yet to define.

I’ll retire myself. I’ll finally stop travelling.

Or maybe my heart will break before.

I’m not tired of travelling. I’m tired of leaving.

It has become painful to tear myself away from pieces of my life.

We used to move from place to place, all of them fascinating but none of them particularly comfortable or easy for outsiders. We were travellers. Picture me alone in Beijing at 16, in Hong Kong at 18, then shortly after with Feng on chicken buses, across borders and oceans—of course, it was temporary. We were going places, not staying anywhere for longer than three or four days unless I had to sort out some bureaucratic issue or Feng was sick (we settled into our respective roles very early).

We were curious outsiders who clearly didn’t belong. We spoke English to each other, one of us fluently and the other tentatively—yep, the latter would be me, not the Chinese guy; never assume, people.

We collected border stamps along the way, then experiences and memories.

I didn’t realize I would also accidentally collect languages.

I also had no idea that cultures are contagious.

Travelling started as a way to escape a life I suspected I didn’t want. It was a guilty pleasure. Feng and I would regularly disappear for a few months. But no one was particularly worried—society would make a man out of us; surely we would eventually settle down, see the light and get a pension job with a mortgage already.

It almost got me because deep down, I did want to belong somewhere. Canada ended up being that place, mostly by accident. And then it turned out I wanted to belong without being tied to a single culture or physical place. Plus, I fucking hate winter, so I kept on travelling.

And along the way, travelling became this full-time activity that keeps my brain switched on. My body learned to adapt to different cultures, and I ended up with several identities, all fighting for attention.

I remember this scene from spring 2024. I went to my grandparents’ grave in France—mamie had passed away that December. I’d brought a few fitas from Bahia and tied them to the headstone. “Perfect timing, it’s Qingming!” Feng told me later that evening. I had accidentally gone to see mamie and papi during the Chinese festival for tending ancestors’ graves.

This is my life now.

I’m no longer between cultures. They are all in me.

A few years ago, I stopped looking for the perfect place where it would magically click and I’d put my backpack down for good.

The question is no longer so much “Where is home?” as “What gives my life meaning?”

This is the part I like.

I like finding something I don’t understand. I can do something about it. I try. I understand it a little better. I figure out how to function. And I move on.

I’m happy when my brain is constantly given small, interesting problems to solve—and most of them are solvable.

And by contrast, that makes Ottawa extremely interesting.

Because Ottawa gives me problems too.

Just not the same kind.

Cost of living, the urban environment, boredom, social norms I figured out but didn’t sign up for, winter, the feeling that I no longer fit the model.

And many of those problems are structural, which means I can’t simply learn the rule and move on to the next problem.

Difficulty doesn’t bother me. Powerlessness does.

There’s a long list of things I don’t understand in China, Brazil or elsewhere, and I focus on figuring them out.

I understand Ottawa perfectly well now. It’s not simply that I don’t like it. It’s that I can’t really change the system, and the problems I keep running into here are no longer the kind I want to solve.

Because somewhere along the way, travelling stopped being something I did and became part of the way I think. China, Brazil, Canada, France and all the places in between are no longer destinations I can leave behind. They show up in the languages I use, the things I notice, the rituals that make sense to me, the comparisons I make without even realizing it.

I used to think I was looking for the place where I would finally put my backpack down.

Turns out I was filling it.

I used to write to make sense of the world I had just landed in.

Now I’m writing to figure out how to live with all those worlds inside me—and what to do with them.

Anyway, don’t mind me. I’ll figure it out.

I’m just moody because I’m heading to Ottawa again.