I'm writing this in advance because I will be away when this goes out. I'll be in New York and it will be my first time back home in over two years because of the pandemic.
Thinking about traveling again has me all sorts of excited but also has forced me to think about my lost months in 2019. I was talking with someone recently about the difference between trying to escape our emotions and traveling to help settle the mind. And those two are very different things.
Once the initial inertia of profound loss has lifted a bit, many of us are almost in a panic to get away - to just lose ourselves out in the world. On the surface, it might look like we're running away from our emotions and our problems and I certainly was accused of just that. But now, two years later, I still don't believe that's what was going on and for me, traveling was a necessity.
In November 2019, I went to Paris for a month and bounced to Lisbon and Marrakech while I was there. I couldn't face being alone without Bill and Klaus for Thanksgiving, nor could I face being with anyone here in the States for a traditional holiday meal. Both scenarios felt brutal for completely different reasons - either having the reality of being completely alone surround me, or attempting to put on a false face for others. I couldn't do either. So when a friend offered their parents' apartment to me for the month of November, I jumped at the chance and booked my flights the same day.
Again, this may seem like I was escaping or avoiding reality but I wasn't. Reality really sets in when you have hours and hours by yourself, in your own thoughts, on flights across the world. And the reality that I could only be there because my family was gone was ever present in my mind as well.
So, why did it help? Traveling forced me to think about my immediate surroundings. I had to pay closer attention to what people were saying to me, whether I understood the language or not. Although I knew Paris, I didn't know the other cities so I had to watch, look, and listen to everything. I love walking in cities so I would walk for miles and miles everywhere I went, which helped me get a better lay of the land and come across things I would not have otherwise encountered. Being alone helped ground me because I felt my smallness even more: as big as my emotions were, they were no bigger than the emotions of all of the strangers surrounding me who all held their own struggles.
In other words, traveling was the ultimate way to force myself into the present. After loss, fears kick up, whether those fears are based in reality or not. Did we do enough for our loved one? Will we be alone forever? Dragging ourselves back and forth through the past and future only serve to send us deeper into the pit of grief. Coming up with ways to stay present can help us learn to get through each moment, which will in turn help us understand that we do have the strength to deal with this, that we are here, that we are alive. And that's not escapism: it's actually grounding down into the present but in a way that can help us cope with our reality.
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