#127: End of Trip Blog
August 7, 2024
End of Trip Blog
As per usual, I’m sitting in a place of transit. At the moment, I’m in a lounging chair in the Hong Kong airport, with a couple hours before my flight home departs. Over the last week and a half, I’ve been hit by sudden bursts of unavoidable tears. It’s not surprising. A month with a group of fantastic, interesting, and kind people, spending days and nights together, sharing vulnerable, fun, and foreign experiences. Exiting from this social submersion was an even greater shock than being plunged into it. Fear not, I’ll back-date a full Japan recap blog. For now I’m simply feeling pensive.
Yes, the end of existing in that community and the undoable changing of the nature of some of the relationships (many friends I hope to keep, but the level of intimacy living as a group is unreplicable), is cause for grief. As David Kessler says, grief is love, and grief is change. The trip ended over a week ago, and I’ve had a week of mostly solo travel since then. The sting of separation has eased over this short time, as is its wont, but the gaps still remain, some still aching. But as always, it is sweeter to shiver, soaked in water, in the brisk air with warm blood coursing through ones veins than to never have swum at all, sitting in sourness, wondering what it feels like to dive, crash, surface, and play in the cold waves.
Grander still is the fact that I will be home in less than a day. Home! In Arlington, Massachusetts, a place I have not been for nearly seven months. I left January 13th, I return August 6th. To be honest, I am very sad that this trip is ending, as well. I suppose I don’t have an attachment to the “trip” as an entity, but to this lifestyle, simply to traveling. It has been exhausting at times, even uninspiring. Seven months is a long time to live, regardless of how you spend it. It is natural, reasonable, logical, expectable, and even healthy that I have had phases where my emotions and presence have felt washed out, where I have not been able to “fully” appreciate the magnificence of wherever I was, and to experience burnout. Still, I feel sadness that I won’t be able to keep traveling. Grief is love, and grief is change.
“We are not thinking beings that sometimes feel, but feeling beings that sometimes think”. It is tempting to accuse myself of ungratefulness, though I have done my best to practice it. This feeling, like many, as I have learned so repeatedly on this trip, is much more a reflection of my feelings, which are in turn a reflection of my broader experience of wellness and environment, than any rational thought. All shall pass with time. Change is the only constant– change is god, some say. Change has been a fantastically vibrant dancing partner this year, the two of us improvising to a soundtrack we can’t predict. It has taught me of the special ripeness of an adjustment period. A great ship will creak and groan when it is asked to make a sudden turn, a joint will pop when asked to bend in a new way, and a heart will ache and stretch when asked to go from solitude to sociality and back, or to leave a place of caring stability for borderline dangerous uncertainty, or even to trade the open road for a familiar bed.
At times I have felt something akin to homesickness, but not quite that thing. I do miss home, of course, as well as Nell’s cabin in Vermont, which I plan on visiting within 72 hours of my return to the US. I miss my friends and family, I miss a lot of my favorite foods. But more than this, I’ve missed stability, I think. Right now it is hard for me to find that feeling in me, as I approach the terminus, naturally. But I know that that hunger hasn’t been washed away. I suspect that it’s waiting around the corner for me. In fact, I have a hunch that a whole host of emotions, predictable and un-, are biding their time, waiting for their chance to surface over the next few days. Simply the workout that my nervous system has been through this year is enough to warrant concern. Six months of planning my housing, transit, food, packing/inventory, passport/visa, budget, wellness, and a freaking full time job, all in places I don’t or barely speak the language is a LOT. I can say with certainty that I am very proud of myself.
Looking back, it has been a bit ludicrous. I’m on the fence about if I should do a bit of a highlight reel paragraph. Eh, fuck it, this post has been too poetic. In this year I’ve… climbed the Eiffel tower, gotten kicked out of the cathedral of Versailles, gotten drunk with my dear friend Maggie in three countries, crossed the border of the world’s only contested capital (Nicosia, Cyprus) five times, visited the Temple of Artemis (WotAW), flown in a hot air balloon in Cappadoccia, Turkey (commando), hiked in the desert with stray dogs, been mugged and got food poisoning in one night in Istanbul, made probably one hundred friends in hostels, skinny-dipped on Mount Olympus, hopped fences in rural Greek olive orchards, took a ferry across the Adriatic, averaged 11.1 miles of walking/running per DAY, saw my uncle Tony’s new pet ostriches and made a deal to harvest olives on his farm after I graduate, met my mom, two of my best friends, and got surprised by my brother in Rome (best city ever), slept through takeoff about 10 times, tried Czech absinth, had the bender of a lifetime in Bratislava, played pool in about 10 countries, including becoming the lowest ranked player in Serbia’s largest amateur 9-ball pool league, hiked in the Slovenian alps for the first time and rowed a boat around Lake Bled, RAN THE BELGRADE MARATHON (4:21:50), lived in Belgrade, commuting to my office in the midst of classic bloks for 2 monts, attempted and failed to do the Mostar bridge dive (still did 42 ft/13m), met some of the coolest activists on the planet through my work, road-tripped with my mom around Serbia and Bosnia, gave a presentation about modern Serbian history, sat on busses for about three hundred hours, walked down Khao San Road in Bangkok after sampling some local delicacies, sunbathed on a Thai island, watched the sun rise over Angkor Wat, had another bender of a lifetime in Phnom Phen, visited heartbreaking genocide and war memorials in Cambodia, Vietnam, and Bosnia, played pickup sand volleyball in Saigon, got awesome and not-so-awesome massages in SEA, shot an AK-47 in the Vietnamese jungle, spoke mandarin for a week in Taiwan, visited the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, wrote a 30 page original research paper, became a dual pilgrim by completing Kumano Kodo (in less than half the recommended time), a 1200 year old pilgrimage in Japan, slept in a hammock for a week, hitchhiked halfway back to Tokyo, and traded yard work for accommodation with the Chief Rabbi of Japan. I ate some of the most delicious food in the world. Brie and escargot in Paris, kebab, doner, souvlaki, gyro, and pastries galore in Cyprus, Turkey, and Greece, pizza in Napoli, focaccia in Bari, prosciutto in Parma and bologna in Bologna, pork knuckle in Prague, wiener schnitzel in Vienna, pierogies in Bratislava, paprikash and langous in Budapest, so much cevapi in the Balkans, pad thai in Bangkok, grilled crickets in Phnom Penh, bahn mi and pho in Saigon, dumplings for days in Taiwan, curry, ramen, sashimi, and sushi in Japan, and about all the street food that east Asia has to offer. And that’s just the stuff I can remember right now! WTFFF. If there’s someone luckier than me out there, I’d like to shake their hand.
For now I am just grateful. For all the people I’ve met on this ride. Lauren, Trinity, Vivi, Noah, Danny, Maja, Fabian, Eda, Demir, Ernesto, Ness, Alfredo, Doug, Richard, Will, Lucca, Sean, Nick, Ella, Harry, Kaylee, Jake, Amelia, Zara, Joao, Simon, Clau, Hailey, Sarah, Zoe, Scott, Reudi, Laura, Tiger, Rachel, Rahul and Liam, Nea and Leak, Paddy, Izzy, and of course Karim, the legend. Everyone on the Bosnia DOC for welcoming me into their community, however briefly, and everyone on the Japan DOC for building a lovely little village of which I was a part. Audrey, Darin, Nora, Jillian, Gabby, Elexa, Claire, Ayla, Jack, and Gaca, and all of the other lovely folks. Shoutout! For all the people I know and who love me, that supported me to do this journey. My mom and brother of course. My Aunt Nell, my grandparents Mary, Gordon, Vito, and Dot. I wish they were here to hear these stories. My dad too. Jack Trapp for showing me how possible it is to travel while in school (check out his blog). All my friends who kept in close touch with me this whole year. If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. But if you want to do both, do both. I dunno that’s kind of dumb but whatever. And of course I am grateful to you, dear reader, the sometimes imaginary, sometimes vindicated (when people tell me they read my blog it is a warm feeling, so don’t be shy *wink*) entity for which I write these blogs. May this record of this adventure help me remember the glorious, chaotic, challenging, and, in every possible sense, filling experience this year has been.
More to come, I’m sure. Don’t hold your breath though. For now I shall cavort in the comfort of my childhood home.