I've decided to start writing again. What exactly, I am not entirely sure of. But, after 6 months back in the US, I realize the hardest part is this. I knew it. I've told enough students in the past that the biggest culture shock they will experience will be the return. It's the unexpected difficulties that you can't anticipate that make it so hard. I braced for the normal things: settling into a new apartment, reexamining a (not-so-new) city, finding a job, having a (not-at-all long-distance) relationship with my friends and family.
These are big enough transitions. But the unanticipated hardship has been settling into these changes with a completely unsettled me.
All of these transitions I took in stride. I found a job. Check. I am in the same town as most of my friends and my boyfriend. Check. I can talk to my family on a regular basis. Check. I understand the culture I am in and it understands me. Check.
And now, what?
Well, quickly into my "technically great" job I realized that it wasn't great at all and I quit. Bummer. After a roller-coaster of anxiety, doubt and unhappiness, I find myself back at the beginning, and pretty darn happy about it. I feel like I stole a little trip in the time machine and get to explore and have fun as I figure out my next steps.
I also soon realized that perhaps my long-distance relationship with my man was better than my in-the-same-town, real-life one. All those moments of waiting for my return and now we are both adjusting to all these moments of real life. Not to mention that many of my friends are taking big steps in their careers, are getting married and having the babies. It's hard to be gearing up for a fresh start, when everyone around you is in "got my shit together" mode.
So, it's been a gallimaufry (look 'er up) of transitional moments and really the only thing that has become clear to me is that life is really like travel - sometimes you get upgraded to first class and sometimes you have to sleep next to a buffalo for two weeks. Either way, you can try to plan for it, but usually your plans change.
And so, I am turning to the only thing that kept me sane during my last transition: writing.
I hope you'll follow as I write about my brand new life as a traveler, paused.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Friday, July 31, 2009
The Return
I've successfully ignored this blog to the point of distraction and so that it's become so big a task that I can't wrap my brain around it. Is it because I've been so busy having a fabulous time that I've stopped tearing myself away from the fun to record it? Or, is it because travel has become so very normal that I'm not sure what to share? (After a while, how does one really describe the craziness of travel when one moment you can be swimming in the Bay of Biscay at 8:00 a.m. drinking a beer and the next moment you are waking up in a tent in the middle of the Czech Republic with a horse staring at you).
Well, I can't avoid it any longer and I'm facing a difficult job summing up how the last few months have been. But, as I'm now unemployed and have a delicious amount of time on my hands, I'll give it the good ol' college try.
***
After a certain amount of time on the road, travel changes. A corner is rounded. You start to feel the strain. The peaks and valleys are higher and lower. The plateaus are endless.
I've spent the majority of the last three months in Spain continuing to learn Spanish. After Nepal, the transition to Spain was tremendous and painful. Returning to the first world is not easy. After the initial wonderment from electricity and running water, the bustle and routine of real life is hard to come back to. There is more distance between people and I feel the strain of social obligations. People have their lives and keep to them. I felt the isolation immediately and missed the days when you met people just walking down the street. In the first world, it's weird if you just approach someone on the street to start a conversation. I was a traveler lost in the middle of normal life.
And so, I found myself much less inspired in Spain and it was a time of language learning and introspection. As plateaus go, this was a long one and I had a lot of time to think and stare down the barrel of the rest of my trip. I wrote little and counted the days. The Fear of returning started to creep in, despite an intense longing to be done with travel. Was it going to be like this when I returned to the states? What exactly am I doing, anyway? I was in a rut.
I was saved from myself when my brother met me in Spain and I started moving again. Trains, planes and buses. Hostels, shitty dorm beds and travel shenanigans. I lay looking up at the underside of my bunk bed and I see all the bunk beds. Suddenly, I was a traveler again and it was good. Travel is like that, just when you think you know what to expect, it changes - it gets harder or easier, or you just stop noticing it all together.
After three weeks of racing around Spain and Portugal and eating as many fried baby squids as we could possibly shove in our mouths (a lot, it turns out), Dylan and I had a race to the airport and then - goodbye! On to the next. I was off to the Czech Republic to meet my boyfriend and start the last leg of my trip. Wine tasting in Moravia and a 3-day music festival in Slovakia. Camping at the beach in France and catching up with old and new friends in England. After the silent panic of my sojourn in Spain, I stopped thinking about what would happen after The Return, and found my old friend the travel groove.
Movement is a good thing, and I've had plenty of it. I feel instantly at ease once the train starts pulling away or the bus tickets are booked. And so, I find myself starting the most difficult part of my journey: returning.
Once a traveler, I'm now just broke and unemployed. I'm excited to find a new job and start over but I'm overwhelmed with the task at hand and how to go about reintegrating into normal life, doing things that are difficult under normal circumstances, with the added difficulty of adjustment and a new identity.
It is great only owning a backpack and a few possessions, but not so easily explained in a job interview. It's romantic in a novel having only $50 in your bank account and a fresh start, but in real life it poses obvious problems.
And the big question: What do I want to do now? Well, I am not quite sure. I feel changed, obviously, and I don't want to lose all that I gained on the road. I am not anxious to get back to office life; I have no interest in rushing back to the grind. I'd like to do much more intentional work and I am not in a rush to define that. I guess I am not interested in returning at all to my old life, but rather continuing. There is no going back now, it's all forward.
And so, it continues. Now, I'm just a traveler, paused. I am going to continue to write, although I think I'm just writing to space. It's no longer "How to quit your job and travel the world," but rather, "How to travel the world and return."
Well, I can't avoid it any longer and I'm facing a difficult job summing up how the last few months have been. But, as I'm now unemployed and have a delicious amount of time on my hands, I'll give it the good ol' college try.
***
After a certain amount of time on the road, travel changes. A corner is rounded. You start to feel the strain. The peaks and valleys are higher and lower. The plateaus are endless.
I've spent the majority of the last three months in Spain continuing to learn Spanish. After Nepal, the transition to Spain was tremendous and painful. Returning to the first world is not easy. After the initial wonderment from electricity and running water, the bustle and routine of real life is hard to come back to. There is more distance between people and I feel the strain of social obligations. People have their lives and keep to them. I felt the isolation immediately and missed the days when you met people just walking down the street. In the first world, it's weird if you just approach someone on the street to start a conversation. I was a traveler lost in the middle of normal life.
And so, I found myself much less inspired in Spain and it was a time of language learning and introspection. As plateaus go, this was a long one and I had a lot of time to think and stare down the barrel of the rest of my trip. I wrote little and counted the days. The Fear of returning started to creep in, despite an intense longing to be done with travel. Was it going to be like this when I returned to the states? What exactly am I doing, anyway? I was in a rut.
I was saved from myself when my brother met me in Spain and I started moving again. Trains, planes and buses. Hostels, shitty dorm beds and travel shenanigans. I lay looking up at the underside of my bunk bed and I see all the bunk beds. Suddenly, I was a traveler again and it was good. Travel is like that, just when you think you know what to expect, it changes - it gets harder or easier, or you just stop noticing it all together.
After three weeks of racing around Spain and Portugal and eating as many fried baby squids as we could possibly shove in our mouths (a lot, it turns out), Dylan and I had a race to the airport and then - goodbye! On to the next. I was off to the Czech Republic to meet my boyfriend and start the last leg of my trip. Wine tasting in Moravia and a 3-day music festival in Slovakia. Camping at the beach in France and catching up with old and new friends in England. After the silent panic of my sojourn in Spain, I stopped thinking about what would happen after The Return, and found my old friend the travel groove.
Movement is a good thing, and I've had plenty of it. I feel instantly at ease once the train starts pulling away or the bus tickets are booked. And so, I find myself starting the most difficult part of my journey: returning.
Once a traveler, I'm now just broke and unemployed. I'm excited to find a new job and start over but I'm overwhelmed with the task at hand and how to go about reintegrating into normal life, doing things that are difficult under normal circumstances, with the added difficulty of adjustment and a new identity.
It is great only owning a backpack and a few possessions, but not so easily explained in a job interview. It's romantic in a novel having only $50 in your bank account and a fresh start, but in real life it poses obvious problems.
And the big question: What do I want to do now? Well, I am not quite sure. I feel changed, obviously, and I don't want to lose all that I gained on the road. I am not anxious to get back to office life; I have no interest in rushing back to the grind. I'd like to do much more intentional work and I am not in a rush to define that. I guess I am not interested in returning at all to my old life, but rather continuing. There is no going back now, it's all forward.
And so, it continues. Now, I'm just a traveler, paused. I am going to continue to write, although I think I'm just writing to space. It's no longer "How to quit your job and travel the world," but rather, "How to travel the world and return."
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Some belated thoughts on turning 30
I am a late bloomer. Always have been, always will be. And so, it is exciting to me that I am finally turning 30. To think, all the things I have yet to do, and how much better they will be now that I am not such a stupid, naive and unprepared 20 year-old!
Ha, yeah right.
When it comes down to it, I am still 15 years-old: I spend my days convinced everyone is looking at the zit on my chin, I wonder when my body is ever going to look like I want it to look and I can't wait to figure out what I'm going to be when I grow up. The only difference now is that I am armed with better friends, wine and a superior ability to rationalize.
The bottom line is, I don't feel older (and thanks to my mom's genes, I don't look any older) and I wouldn't return to my twenties for all the money in the world (unless I could return to my younger self to pry the bread from her hands and give her a good slap regarding all things related to ex-boyfriends).
Of course, I miss the fleeting wonder of my ass at 19 years-old, but I'm so much happier now, knowing myself better, knowing what I want and need and just not giving a shit what others think.
I also find it interesting that I've spent this last year traveling. Normally, taking a year-off to travel is done after college and I met a lot of people in their earlier twenties, or the infamous gap-year kids ruining the British reputation the world over. Personally, I couldn't have done this journey any earlier and certainly wouldn't have been able to appreciate it like I have. I learned all the same things I would have learned - how to adapt to change, problem solving, language skills and in general who I am - but this time, I think the learning experience was a little bit more profound. I know who I am and more importantly, I know who I will never be. It's a whole lot easier to work on being a better person in the areas you know you can change than wasting your time wanting to be something you cannot. I can't kid myself that I will ever figure it all out, I hope I don't. It's just too much fun learning.
So, I'm a little bit wiser and my ass is a little bit wider and softer (but I care less, so it's a bit of a wash). I can't deny the importance of my twenties, I have them to thank for all those "what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger" moments that have brought me here today. But I happily say goodbye to them and I hope the door doesn't hit their ass on the way out.
Ha, yeah right.
When it comes down to it, I am still 15 years-old: I spend my days convinced everyone is looking at the zit on my chin, I wonder when my body is ever going to look like I want it to look and I can't wait to figure out what I'm going to be when I grow up. The only difference now is that I am armed with better friends, wine and a superior ability to rationalize.
The bottom line is, I don't feel older (and thanks to my mom's genes, I don't look any older) and I wouldn't return to my twenties for all the money in the world (unless I could return to my younger self to pry the bread from her hands and give her a good slap regarding all things related to ex-boyfriends).
Of course, I miss the fleeting wonder of my ass at 19 years-old, but I'm so much happier now, knowing myself better, knowing what I want and need and just not giving a shit what others think.
I also find it interesting that I've spent this last year traveling. Normally, taking a year-off to travel is done after college and I met a lot of people in their earlier twenties, or the infamous gap-year kids ruining the British reputation the world over. Personally, I couldn't have done this journey any earlier and certainly wouldn't have been able to appreciate it like I have. I learned all the same things I would have learned - how to adapt to change, problem solving, language skills and in general who I am - but this time, I think the learning experience was a little bit more profound. I know who I am and more importantly, I know who I will never be. It's a whole lot easier to work on being a better person in the areas you know you can change than wasting your time wanting to be something you cannot. I can't kid myself that I will ever figure it all out, I hope I don't. It's just too much fun learning.
So, I'm a little bit wiser and my ass is a little bit wider and softer (but I care less, so it's a bit of a wash). I can't deny the importance of my twenties, I have them to thank for all those "what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger" moments that have brought me here today. But I happily say goodbye to them and I hope the door doesn't hit their ass on the way out.
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