Last weekend, I read this post by Allison Arnone (a blogger I love) in which she confesses to the fact that she really doesn’t enjoy travel. I found it funny that I agreed with so much of what I was reading–especially since I’ve just returned from a 10-day trip to the UK.
All my life, I’ve lived with this paradox: I love exploring new places, but I hate to travel. This is true in spite of the fact that I spent many huffy teenage hours at the airport, dreaming of where I’d go when I was old enough to leave my dinky little hometown behind. I couldn’t wait to be one of the people getting on those planes.
Whenever I mention this to people, the usual response is something like “Everybody hates to travel! It’s just one hassle after another.” And yet I know people who love the whole process. They love organizing and packing their things, distilling their lives into one small bag. They love the bustle of the airport, or the kitschy roadside restaurants and bizarre claims to fame (like World’s Largest Ball of Twine. Because we all should know where the world’s largest ball of twine is, just in case.)
Me, I like to stay home. Things are comfortable and organized and quiet here. But I also really love to see new things–which almost always means leaving my house. And once I get wherever I’m going, I almost always have a wonderful time.
Because, as I’ve said, I love to explore new places. I just really don’t like getting there.
In large part, I think my travel anxiety has to do with the fact that travel requires me to acknowledge how many things I can’t control: the weather, the airlines, any number of people who are making choices that will impact my life. I’m really not good at giving up control of anything, or even the illusion of control–which, let’s face it, is really all we have. Travel just makes that lack of control more apparent.
The flip side of this paradox, of course, is that surrendering control makes the travel experience more pleasant. In fact, it’s the thing my husband loves most about the whole process: you can just float along on the current of others’ decisions until you arrive at your destination, whenever that might be.
I manage my anxiety by reminding myself (several times, if necessary) that there’s nothing I can do to solve whatever the problem is, and that patience is the only way to make it more bearable. Anxiety just makes the situation worse.
So I take a deep breath. Several deep breaths, sometimes. I focus on the destination. I remind myself that I will get there, eventually. A few hours one way or the other won’t ruin everything.
Of course, being away from home, all in itself, is another element of the travel paradox. This is especially true for an introvert like me. Home is a sacred space for those of us who need lots of quiet time to recharge; being away from home is physically and emotionally taxing.
And yet, at the same time, travel is a great opportunity for being alone. People protect their personal space in airports, sitting one seat away from anyone else in the gate area if they’re traveling by themselves (until that becomes impossible.) No one looks askance at a woman eating alone in an airport restaurant–it’s not uncommon. No one takes this as an invitation to join you. If I have a long layover, I seek out a gate where no other passengers have congregated. It’s not always quiet, but it’s quiet-ish. In an airport, even extroverts seem to understand that some people need personal space.
But perhaps the central element of the travel paradox is this: you are always yourself, no matter where you go in the world. Travel, however, lets you shape that person differently. When Mike and I made a trip to Paris in the early 1990’s, for instance, just after the end of the very unpopular Gulf War, the prevailing sentiment toward Americans wasn’t positive. So we decided to try to look something other than American. For the most part, that just meant dressing nicely at all times and wearing loafers rather than tennis shoes. When people made assumptions and greeted us in German, we nodded politely and said Guten tag.
I think one of the reasons women so often buy a whole new wardrobe for a trip is that they’re planning to become someone else while they’re away from home; dressing the part of that new person is the first step in a process. And travel does, as I’ve said, allow you to reshape your life–just temporarily, and in small ways. But it’s important to remember that you’re traveling with the same body (and the same body issues) you’ve always had. Your emotional baggage goes with you on every trip, too.
You can’t magically divest yourself of burdens you’ve been carrying around for years. It’s unfair to expect that of yourself.
So, while the travel paradox does make it possible to shake things up a bit, remember Jon Kabat-Zinn’s important observation: wherever you go, there you are. And this is not a bad thing. Since you are there, you are the one who’ll return with a story to tell.
When I mentioned this blog post to Mike, he said “Travel is kind of like parenting, when you think about it. You don’t enjoy being up with a baby all night long, but that’s not why you do it. You have a kid because you want being a parent to be part of your story.”
He’s right, of course. And that’s exactly why I travel: for the story that will last much longer than the difficult moments I have to endure in order to get where I’m going.
1 Comment
You just described exactly how I feel so much of the time!