I am very good at figuring things out.
I always have been. And I am grateful for the combination of intelligence and intuition that I have been blessed with that makes it possible for me to teach myself a variety of things by process of elimination, rudimentary research, observation, etc.
Which, guess what? Makes it very, very easy for me to get super, super angry when I can’t figure out something on my own.
I read a study recently that found that “bright girls, when given something to learn that was particularly foreign or complex, were quick to give up—and the higher the girls’ IQ, the more likely they were to throw in the towel.” The article is more than a little gender essentialist and is problematic in a bunch of ways, but I find that it rings heartbreakingly true for me. I’ve long felt that if I can’t relatively quickly get into a groove with a new endeavor, it means I’m bad or wrong in some way, and that I shouldn’t bother trying to do whatever it is because it isn’t fated or otherwise in the cards for me.
One of the (many) problems with this approach comes up when the challenge is not so easily tossed aside, when it’s a thing that some deeper part of me is really drawn to. Which makes the thing even scarier because not knowing how to get it starts to feel that much more freighted with risk and peril and the possibility of not only failure and humiliation but also of not being able to satisfy a deep craving in my soul.
This is a very, very highfalutin preamble to my talking about the fact that I want to travel more than I currently do, and I haven’t yet been able to figure out how to make it happen.
I’ll need to write more at length at some point about the extremely formative trip I took to France when I was fourteen. Suffice to say, this first journey abroad lit up a longing for travel in me that was so acute it felt less like longing and more like necessity. I need to be a person who travels.
And though I’ve taken many wonderful, memorable trips in the years since, in some ways it feels like some sort of travel anorexia—like it’s the bare minimum that I can parcel out to myself to keep my traveler’s spirit alive. As I watch so many friends have amazing experiences adventuring, working, and relocating abroad, I feel like that little girl inside me, the little girl who will always be trying her hardest to get an A on the test, start to throw a tantrum because she can’t figure out how to get a piece of that for herself.
But, I’m realizing that the key for me at this point might be to stop silently stewing about this in private, allowing myself to feel like an epic failure as each month ticks by without my getting on a plane (or a train or, hell, even in a car for longer than an hour), and just admitting out loud that this is a thing I want but haven’t yet figured out how to get for myself.
I want to figure out how to budget more effectively so that I can afford airfare and accommodations for getting to and staying in the kinds of places I want to go.
I want to figure out the best combination of traveling solo versus going with a companion who’s as excited about these kinds of trips as I am.
I want to figure out how often is often enough, and how long is long enough, for me to feel happily well traveled without compromising the rest of my life and routine and responsibilities.
I want to figure out how to have the kind of soul-enriching, quirky, and unique travel experiences that I want to have without succumbing to the convenience of bland, Americanized, prepackaged tourist traps and clichéd sightseeing.
I want to view trips I haven’t taken and destinations I’ve yet to see as exciting, invigorating goals on a wishlist rather than as forbidden fruit I can’t touch, or, worse, as failing marks on some kind of cosmic test that’s being held against me.
So, if you’re a traveler at heart, too—let’s talk. If you’re feeling stuck in your ability to make it happen, let’s brainstorm ways we can all inch a little bit closer to our dreams. If you’re someone who has cracked the code and revels in a steady diet of journeys and excursions, help a girl out and let me know what kind of steps you took when you were first learning how to put these kinds of trips together for yourself.
*
See also, from the Queen of Peaches archives: A Vegas Baby, The Spirituality of Air Travel
Queen of Peaches 