when your family calls you make nice to them all and assure them you're fine and you're great.

I've recently been to Budapest with my brother and I'm already planning my next vacation. I'd like to go to England for one or two weeks at the end of September. That's the idea.
But the whole planning process isn't going well at all.

I hate traveling alone and at the same time I love it.
How does this make any sense?
Here's the deal. When I imagine traveling alone I see freedom (how cheesy does it sound?). You can go wherever you want, whenever you want. You can spend the entire afternoon in a museum. You can skip places, stay at other places longer than planned. You can meet new people everywhere. On the train or a hostel dorm rooom. There are so many chances. It's all about exploring and meeting new people.
That's what it is.
In my head.
Every time I actually go on an "adventure" by myself I make sure I get to my destination of choice safe. Train or flight booked. Hotel room for one person booked as well. No hostel with dorm rooms. I'm way to scared to stay at one. I'm terrified.
And the vacation itself? I usually start of being mildly excited (yes, mildly. I'll talk about this in a different blog post) and then it gets downhill. I end up being tired at 5pm every day. Wandering around all alone, not talking to anyone. I start feeling lost.
Not in a physical way. This girl here knows how to read maps. No, in a mental way. It's a thing in my head.
The same way I prefer to have the apartment all for myself, but as soon as I'm alone for a weekend, I go crazy. I cry, don't do anything at all and get annoyed by every little thing.
Same thing happens when I travel. I end up not enjoying the new places, because I'm lost and lonely. I realize how lonely I am and start feeling depressed (more depressed than usual).

And then I come back home and people ask me about my trip. And I lie and say things like "It was great!"
Sometimes I'm honest and say "It was quite okay." But people don't like it when I say that. If you go on vacation, you either have to tell a lot of exciting, interesting stories or tell only bad things. You're allowed to tell bad things. Like terrible hotels and bad food and stuff like that. But it has to be interesting. You have to stick to a pattern. That's what people like to hear about your vacation. A "It was quite okay" isn't any good.
And then they keep asking. "What did you do? What did you see? Tell me everything about it!"
And I tell them that there isn't much to say. I went places, looked around and left. That's how my trips go.
It's slightly different when I have a travel companion. I always imagine, that with the right travel companion it would be a hell of a lot fun. But I can't tell for sure. Because I never had the right travel companion so far.
It is slightly different. Not a whole lot. I don't get that lost and depressed. Everything else is pretty much the same. I don't have to say much about it afterwards.
It was okay. We went places.

Travelling alone and not experiencing much gives me the impression that I simply suck at organizing myself and doing things alone.
But why when I have company?
Are my companions to boring or am I simply unable to enjoy things no matter what sort of circumstances there are?
It's most likely a combination of both.

I often wish for things, imagine them as being great and then they're not. Or at least not for me. A lot of things I experience are probably awesome, but I don't have the emotions for it. But I don't want to talk about the lack of emotions right now. That's a different chapter I'd like to discuss another time (that blog post where I'm gonna explain the "mildly excited" part). I want to stay focused on the loneliness and how conflicting it is.
It's like the days when I'm home alone and start to feel depressed and lonely. I want to have friends around, or cuddle up in bed with someone, or simply hug a friend.
But when it happens that I'm around friends and someone puts their arm around my shoulder or something else normal friends do, I back off or want to push them away.
I wanted it and then I don't.
I don't know why I'm doing it. I know that I need closer friends. Those wishes and dreams of friends and traveling alone and make new friends as I go, that's what I want. But whenever I get the chance I don't let it happen.

I can't point my finger on something and say that's the reason why I behave that way. I have my theories and the same time I try not to think about it too hard. Is it good to figure out the reason? That's the most annoying part about mental problems. You don't know if it's best not to dig around in your past and focuse on your current problems or if you can only solve your problems if you figure out why it all started.
For my loneliness I have to say that I'm almost a 100% certain that it goes back to pretty much the day I was born. The way I grew up is why I hate being alone with a passion and at the same time can't bond at all.
It's one of the many vicious circles of my depression I have to break. Of course, I don't know how.
I'm stuck after the first step of naming it.
It's dragging me down. Every day of my life and it ruins my vacations. Those small opportunities where I get the chance to get out of my daily life.
Wish me luck that I figure out a way to go on vacation next month and that I survive and come back home and tell you guys that it was at least "nice".