Have Itch. Will Travel (T-Minus 20 (!!!!) Days)

You guessed it; I’m on the road again. I am actually in one of the few cool cities I get to travel to for work, but it’s cold and rainy outside and I really just don’t feel like boozing it up on a Tuesday night. So instead I am in an abandoned banquet room in the far reaches of the ninth floor daydreaming about other places.

My reading list of late has been full of travel memoirs – all vaguely similar, but yet so completely different. Yes, each one is about a young single woman (or a few of them) who decides to throw everything else away to travel in an effort to find themselves before facing some big obstacle – turning 30, graduation, getting over a relationship or simply being at peace.

Following The Lost Girls, which I have already wholeheartedly endorsed here, I turned to The Good Girl’s Guide to Getting Lost and have Wanderlust waiting in my Nook queue , while adding countless other my Goodreads “to read” list. The trend is so evident one of my friends sent me a message just to make sure I wasn’t planning to run off to the Congo any time soon.

I hadn’t thought about, but this doesn’t look so bad. Maybe I’ll add it to my list.

One of the common threads between the women in these books is an already deep-seeded love and appreciation for travel and adventure. Now I would like to think I am in the process of developing both, but it has been a long time coming and I have not come by it naturally.

My family did not do adventure growing up and we definitely did not do exotic travel. When I went to France with a group of classmates in high school, I was the first person in my family to get a passport. I was a junior in high school and it was just the second time I had been on an airplane. We also never appreciated what we had in our own backyard – I grew up 25 minutes from the beach and it was not until I could drive myself and later when I dated a surf instructor in college (The Badass) did I begin to revel in the ocean’s majesty.

Yes, I said majesty. Get over it.

My point is I did not grow up with the notion travel – and more so stepping out of one’s comfort zone – are necessary parts of life and I kind of resent that a little bit. My mother is very cautious and a kid has no choice but to absorb those reactions to things like heights, bridges, driving fast, oceans, planes, etc., and it has taken me a long time to realize I want to face all of those things with reckless abandon.

It’s a bit overwhelming to face at this point in life a—to learn all these ~ing skills and embrace the life they fit into.  

But I am trying.

Because if my life is for rent and I don’t learn to buy, I deserve nothing more than I get because nothing I have is truly mine.

Sound familiar?

I had my iPod on shuffle the other day and Dido’s “Life for Rent” came on and it stopped me in my tracks and I had to listen again. And again. I remember getting the CD in college and reveling in this song, but it speaks to me a little differently now.

I haven't ever really found a place that I call home

I never stick around quite long enough to make it

I apologize once again I'm not in love

But it's not as if I mind

that your heart ain't exactly breaking

It's just a thought, only a thought

But if my life is for rent and I don't learn to buy

Well I deserve nothing more than I get

‘Cause nothing I have is truly mine

I've always thought

that I would love to live by the sea

To travel the world alone

and live more simply

I have no idea what's happened to that dream

‘Cause there's really nothing left here to stop me

It's just a thought, only a thought

But if my life is for rent and I don't learn to buy

Well I deserve nothing more than I get

‘Cause nothing I have is truly mine

If my life is for rent and I don't learn to buy

Well I deserve nothing more than I get

‘Cause nothing I have is truly mine

While my heart is a shield and I won't let it down

While I am so afraid to fail so I won't even try

Well how can I say I'm alive

If my life is for rent and I don't learn to buy

Well I deserve nothing more than I get

‘Cause nothing I have is truly mine

If my life is for rent and I don't learn to buy

Well I deserve nothing more than I get

‘Cause nothing I have is truly mine

Sound familiar?

It’s taking all I have not to run off to the Congo tomorrow. Or in 20 days. With my bag of travel books and the desire to write one of my own. With this in my head:

T-Minus 35 Days. That's all I've got.

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day and I feel like I should have some strong feelings about it and to be honest, I really don’t. I am once more on the road for work (it seems the only time I ever have to write) and I have to admit I really don’t care about too much right now.

I wish I could report I was at least abiding by my New Year’s Resolution each every day, but I had to go back and look at what I wrote because, for the life of me, I couldn’t even remember what I wrote a month and a half ago.

Fearing less? I think that would require giving a shit.

Which I don’t. Not exactly a sign of progress.

I think I have, however, finally lost hope on Sparks and I wish I just had stuck to it when I tried to give it up back before Christmas. Giving up allows more of a chance to hold onto pride than losing; at least I had some choice in the matter before. He sucked me back in though, with talk of trying to get together and with text messages that would make just about anyone blush. It appeared the pissing dog scenario came into play, even from long distance.

 Instead, it also appears he has apparently realized this – whatever this is – is simply not worth it after nearly a year. Or at least that is what I take from complete silence for the last two weeks after a reasonable facsimile of a disagreement and an awkward convo.

Who knew it was possible to lose something you never had to begin with? Or that it would suck so much.

Should our paths cross again in a month, as they have for each of the last two years and are predicted to again, it is hard to imagine having the strength (or desire) not to give in and go down this road again. For which I will apologize for now.

All I have until then are 35 more days in my 20’s, which probably isn’t enough time to figure out what I came here to do. Find some passion. Some groove.

Or maybe it is. Who knows?

I’m just trying to make myself care about it again.