Triggers
My girlfriend is coming back from Santiago, Chile after being gone for a month. I’m very excited to see her but this month has been really tumultuous on an emotional level for me.
I don’t know what it is, but I do feel like there has been a void. Without her around, I’ve been waking up more tired, a lot more anxious, and a lot more worried. That stability is so valuable to me, especially nowadays.
March Madness definitely was one cause of that uneasiness. Finally paying off the credit card debt of the past four months of travel (New Orleans, New York City, and D.C.) and Christmas shopping because I got a full-time job in January was such a relief. Then, that credit card debt went right back to what it was when we booked all of the travel for the year (3 wedding flights, 3 nights of Phish in Denver on Labor Day weekend plus travel and lodging, a beach trip in a week, among others). Then, going on a betting run and happening to make enough to pay almost all of that off. Then the annoyance of having to deal with bookie shenanigans and people who are using the classic sleazy tactics and hope you are too impulsive and not patient. There was also the feeling of seeing money fly away when Duke lost to Kansas and the disappointment that came along with it. Then there was seeing Stormy Daniels right afterwards on 60 Minutes and feeling somewhat better.
I could go on and on, but I say all that to point out that we go through so many little things in our daily lives. We get so stuck in our ways and that’s ok. That’s how we’re choosing to spend our time.
But for someone coming back home after being gone for so long, there’s always that 2 week period or so where they have that glow like they just had a life changing experience. And then their surroundings finally bring them back to the reality.
I remember coming back from studying abroad in Istanbul for two months. I’d traveled internationally before, but traveling on my own to another country and proving to myself that I could do it and not get murdered or get lost or make myself look like a fool (and also having the time of my life), I came back a different person for sure. I felt like I wasn’t ready to be back home yet. And everyone at home was like not as happy or excited as I was.
I remember talking to my friend James Harb about this at the time. I think I said something along the lines of, “Man, I feel like I have so much creativity right now and I’m a new person, but everyone else is expecting me to be the same person from when I left.”
He responded, “When you go through a life changing experience like that, don’t expect the people around you at home to understand. They won’t. People who have also had that experience will, though.”
And today, I want to make sure that Alicia doesn’t get the burdens of my last month dumped on her and try to pull me up like she pretty much always does. I want to listen to her and see all her pictures and give her all the oohs and ahhs and not fake it because of some relatively small annoyance at work that I couldn’t get over because I obsess over every little thing and problems that don’t really exist and won’t go away until I clear the air and realize it was something only I thought about.
I can’t remember the name of the blog post or the author. I think it was Pico Iyer. He was talking about how for some of us, dropping someone off or picking someone up at the airport is a huge moment and so emotional because it doesn’t happen very often and saying bye is difficult. For others, you’re just waiting at the baggage claim on your check-in and ready to get in the car to get home and it is business as usual.
If you’re one of the people in the latter category, know that I will always happily listen to your travel stories. I may not retain it all, but I will definitely listen and be attentive. The details will be in my brain somewhere and I’ll pull from it when I personally run into it or someone else talks about it. And one day you’ll hear from me when that memory of us talking gets triggered.