Hello
fellow lovers of nature and travel (I hope) my name is Hannah Matthews and I’m
here to let you know a little bit about me and how travelling and the great
outdoors has significantly changed my entire life. I was born and raised in
Utah, mostly Alpine and so I grew up surrounded by beautiful mountains and
canyons all within arm’s reach.
As
a child we were lucky enough to have the world's most amazing single mom that
even though she worked full time she took us camping, climbing, hiking, and
outdoors at least once a week. She’s really the one who sparked my love for the
outdoors and traveling. My life hasn’t always been easy. When I was 3 my
parents got divorced and my father came out as a gay man which was a life
changer. It’s not that it was hard to have a gay dad but how people treated me
for having a gay dad. We had drinks thrown at us and people yelling at us but
my dad always taught us to love people no matter how they treated us so we had
a solid upbringing.
In
the last 4 years of my life I have lost my two best friends to suicide, two
best friends to driving accidents, and my father to a brief illness. It’s been
really hard and sometimes I have wanted to give up but what has really kept me
going is having this amazing outlet with nature. There is something about
having a bad day and going to the canyon and being surrounded by beauty and
such amazing things that still takes my breath away most days. Climbing and
hiking are really where I have found comfort within those days that I had a
dark cloud above me.
And
then something crazy happened.
I
started getting this crazy desire to travel the world. As a college student I
felt it was so out of reach financially that I just stopped thinking about it
entirely. But it wouldn’t go away so I just decided to pick a place and go with
it. I was sitting on Pinterest one night when I searched “safest solo female
trips” and there it was...BALI…and that was it, I knew in an instant that it
was BALI.
There
is no way to describe that feeling. I felt so many emotions that I just sat in
silence and shed a few tears and I knew I was going to Bali no matter what. I
felt the same feeling when I booked the hotel, and then the airplane ticket,
the passport, and then when I got on that first plane. I never had a doubt, I
was never worried, and I had never been so sure of anything in my entire life.
I joke that until I won’t get married until I feel the same way about the man I
am marrying as I did about Bali. Yeah, I could sit here and tell you about how
unreal the scenery in Bali is, or how I ate a fresh pineapple on a white sand
beach while getting a massage, or about the time two young beautiful British
boys offered to buy me a drink, or about the 2am hike up the tallest mountain
in Bali just in time to see the sunrise while drinking the most delicious cup
of coffee I’ve ever had, while sitting next to a baby monkey. I could brag to
you about all these amazing adventurous I had but that’s not really what this
post is about.
This
post is about Bali and the eye opening, earth trembling, and hard to ignore
experiences that I felt while visiting this place I had dreamed of for 2 years.
Bali started out as a dream that became a reality with a little hard work and
determination.
When
I got to Bali I was overcome with so much emotion that my taxi driver probably
thought I was mentally insane, since I was just looking at every single thing
and just crying. I didn’t realize that Bali would actually change my life in
the way that it did. I knew travelling changed you, and I knew that I might
have some eye opening experiences but I didn’t expect this many, or to feel
that deeply while on “vacation.”
So
here I am with a classic list of things I learned in Bali with literally the
tiniest explanation compared to the depth of emotions I could dive into. I
could’ve written a blog post on each of these and I still might so just love me
ok? Can you do that this one time?
1.
You can do anything: Simple right? You can do anything. No, not
simple. It’s like meditation. Meditation is literally just sitting on the floor
and thinking nothing yet it is near impossible to do that it takes people years
of training until they can actually fully meditate. So, yeah it’s easy to say
you can do anything but to actually do anything is wildly different. I knew I
wanted to go to Bali for two years, people didn’t believe me, at times I
didn’t believe me, and my bank account definitely didn’t believe me but somehow
after working hard for two years and never giving up I was in Bali. It was so
inspirational, I became my own inspiration. I had a wild dream and I went for
it and I did it. That’s something that changes your life.
2.
If you think you deserve more, odds are you do: This can apply to
almost anything, although I think it had more of a specific meaning to me. This
last year has been hell and most of that is due to other people treating me
less than I have felt like I deserved. I’ve had to make some hard decisions and
cut some people out of my life and that has been incredibly hard.
But I discovered in Bali that I feel about myself how other people
treat me. If I feel like someone ditches me a lot and doesn’t really want to be
my friend I start to feel like I am not someone people want to be friends with.
If you constantly don’t include me or make me feel left out I start to feel
like I am not a person that should be included, and that there are a million
people better than me. So in order for me to be happy and positive about myself
I need people who don’t drag me down. I need friends who share opportunities
with me, make time for me; want me to hang out with them and their other
friends, and who make me feel like I am valuable. I want to feel valuable. And
I have very few friends that make me feel that way and I have to step back from
the rest.
3.
You are valuable: I haven’t felt valuable in a long time. I feel
insecure, dumb, useless, friendless, and alone most of the time but in Bali I
felt valuable. Strangers thought I was smart and pretty and unique. I felt like
I had something to offer to this world and my own opinion of myself changed
within an instant. I stopped listening to what everyone was saying and tried to
just think of myself and what I had to offer the world and I discovered that I
have a lot to offer.
4.
You don’t always have to be the “Cool Girl”: You know the cool
girl? Who dresses in guy t shirts and ripped jeans, never needs to DTR, listens
to old rock, hardly wears makeup or brushes her hair and still looks perfect,
and seems to never be affected by anything anyone says about her. That’s who I
have been trying to be and it’s not me. I care about everything; I care about
everything too much. I hate old rock, and I care about what people think of me.
I will keep the boy t shirts and ripped jeans but that’s strictly due to being
comfy AF and being bad ass. It’s ok to be emotional, and have feelings. It’s ok
to want a commitment from a guy, its okay to be a girl and watch one tree hill.
I think I just needed to finally allow myself to not be so into being someone I
am not and just being me. Hopefully that still means I am cool…but like it’s
also ok not be cool.
5.
Stop giving a shit: Hannah, stop caring so much about who people
think you are. Get out of your mind. If it makes you happy, keep it. If it
makes you sad, ditch it. If you’re not sure, ditch it. I cling to everyone and
everything no matter how shitty it is, or how shitty they treat me. JUST LET
GO. You’re going to eventually lose the things that make you sad so save
yourself some crying time and get it over with. You are worth so much more than
you think. You are worth so much more than what you think others think.
Well
I think those are some of the most valuable things I learned while in Bali, and
some of them are going to be a lot harder to actually do than others but
eventually I think that I will be OK and that I will do hard things. Cause I’ve
done hard things before and not to toot my own horn but I kick ass at it.
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