I keep seeing travel meme’s in my newsfeed. Beautiful photos of iconic landmarks with a wistful scrawl across them. “The world’s a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” Or this one “Once a year go someplace you’ve never been before.” And this, this one keeps popping up all the time “Travel. As much as you can. As long as you can. Life’s not meant to be lived in one place.”
Life’s not meant to be lived in one place?
I have no idea how life is meant to be lived.
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I had an email from a friend, we were talking travel plans. His wife has turned forty and he wants to make sure she gets a trip to Paris to celebrate. I’d talked to her about it earlier in the year, he would look after the children and she’d have a week walking the streets of Paris. She may possibly skip rather than walk. She’s planning on going alone, in the same way that any mother of two young children dreams of being alone, just better, because she’ll be in Paris. When I asked what his travel plans were, he talked of maybe coming to see us before heading to Hong Kong. “I was going to just go to Hong Kong but I decided I’d be too damn lonely. She’s much better at travelling alone than I am.”
I’ve been the lonely traveller. It’s the bit you don’t see in the memes. The long haul flight shared with the master farter sitting next to you who does a bit of crop dusting every time he makes his routine hourly cabin walk. The arrival that is both exciting but slightly terrifying when you can’t find your travel documents, or the visa desk you were assured was there. These are not real problems of course, just minor hiccups. The lost bag, the forgotten cell phone charger, the broken handle on your overstuffed carry-on luggage. They are all things that can be fixed. It’s the moments that make you wince with a tinge of embarrassment or a hint of homesickness. When you pronounce the name of the landmark you’re looking for incorrectly to the men behind the hotel desk, you wouldn’t have even realised had you not heard them giggling with each other as you walked away. When someone bumps into you in the street spilling coffee down your front and keeps walking after realising you don’t speak the language. Why say sorry if you don’t understand me? Why say anything if you don’t understand me? Or when you notice a sign, something familiar, something that means everything in your world, and you turn with an excited smile and realise theres no-one to share it with. That’s the lonely traveller.
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My grandparents never had passports. They had a caravan and a regular gig each year in a beachside town. They were married happily for fifty years, side by side. My grandfather refused to get on a plane, he saw no need. “I have everything I need right here” he told me once. I believed him, I think he really did.
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I was waiting in an underground car park the other day, it must have been 40 degrees down there. The cars sat like bread baking in an oven, a man in red overalls approached me as I stepped out of my car. “Cash wash madam?” He held a spray bottle of water and a cloth, he was charging $5 for the job.
“Where are you from?” I asked through the haze of the heat.
“Nepal” he said with a smile.
“When will you be home next?”
“I go see my family next year. I come here to work for my family” another smile.
My calculation of his daily earnings led me down a thoughtless path. “You have enough to send home?”
He shook his head and smiled.
Life’s not meant to be lived in one place. As much as you can. As long as you can.
To be able to afford to live life in the one place. To not have to leave.
It’s a luxury for some.
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Nailed it.
I became an expat very unwillingly. I never wanted to leave my family, my friends, my suburb. I could see our life, primary school, high school, watching our kids grow and finally taking a year off to travel around australia on our motorbikes while the kids looked after (trashed) the house hanging out with their uni friends.
Now, I’ve lived in the Middle East, I’ve traveled Europe, I’m planning our new life in NZ and already thinking about what our next holiday will be and secretly wondering what our next big move will be.
I know I would have been happy if we’d never left, but I’ve learnt more about myself than I would have thought possible and love the possibilities that have opened up before me. The luxury of choices.
Live as much as you can. What a great (and so true) twist on the concept of it all.
For me, moving was also a bit of a necessity for the good of the family. I was nervous and excited at the same time. Not a day goes by that I don’t miss friends and family but if I look back over the last 4 years having lived in 3 different countries (2 continents), it feels like 10 years worth. Before, I was happy but life was consumed by predictable events and routine, and a year would go by in a blink of an eye. Now, the stress is more, I’m a lot poorer thanks to any moves but I feel like I’ve started to live life rather than watch it go by.
“I’m a lot poorer” oh so true. I think more needs to be said about the reality of the expense of constantly moving. But, like you said, we wouldn’t change it for anything. xx
Oh I love this post. People tell me I was “brave” for moving, but being an expat kid, for me staying in the one spot absolutely terrified me.
On a daily basis I feel blessed for the experiences I get to have and share with my kids, for the adventure, for the people I have the privilege of meeting. I’m also reminded on a daily basis of the people who travel far from home but don’t get to share it with their families. For whom it’s not an adventure or a privilege but a necessity.
I have to say a lot of the ‘inspirational’ memes of Facebook often just reinforce the privilege and ‘first-world problems’ we face!