Traveling? Alone? Cue deep breathing
I’m going to throw up. I’m going to throw up, and while I’m at it, I may as well just die, too. I may die. Logically speaking, I could die. It’s not off the table. This roughly summarizes the thoughts that were banging around in my head on the first day of my first solo trip. It seems that I was feeling “go big or go home” to an almost pathological level at the time of booking, because I decided that rather than traveling somewhere within driving distance, or even within the country, I may as well just fly to Costa Rica by myself for two weeks and either hope that I make friends while I volunteer, or enjoy the time alone.
The day before I left, I spent a good two hours sitting in a Starbucks, staring helplessly at my childhood best friend and cracking jokes about how she would never see me again because I was either going to get lost, get kidnapped, drown, or experience a dozen other worst case scenarios that I conjured up as we sat there, my anxiety a steady incline, her patience for my nonsense a steady decline. The anxiety was a physical thing, coiled all throughout my stomach, creeping up my throat. I felt like I couldn’t eat, couldn’t talk, couldn’t breathe. Felt like maybe the stress would kill me before I could so much as check into my flight, so at least then I wouldn’t have to worry about dying on my trip anymore… because I’d already be dead.
You to me right now: “So like… Why are you going?”
If at this point you’re wondering why I would subject myself to what was clearly deep emotional turmoil, that would be valid; I was wondering the same. I am of the belief that somewhere within my genetic makeup there must be a physical, biological thing, a part of my very being that was born with the need to explore the world. A travel gene, if you will. It’s the only logical explanation for the paradox that is me… because for as long as I can remember, my anxiety has been a weight pressing down on my chest, cutting off my air, cutting off my ability to speak, to act. My fight or flight response kicks in during social interactions, during presentations, during instances that should feel mundane but instead start to feel life-threatening.
I picture two arms, one that represents fight and one that represents flight, arm-wrestling over the course of my life, over every single stressor that I encounter. It hasn’t been a fair match, either. Flight always wins, even in small moments where you wouldn’t expect any emotional turmoil at all: in the past, my grades have suffered from it. Rather than simply raising my hand and providing an answer that I fully, confidently know to a group of ten, maybe twenty people, I have let my grade drop a letter for fear of speaking (special shoutout to all of my college professors who loved me anyway… I’m looking at you, Dr. R). For the vast majority of my life, it has been this way. Flight has had fight pinned to the table. I’ve given up, I’ve run, and I’ve missed out on opportunities because of it. But head over to a new country with a different currency, a different language? I’ll do anything to make that happen. Suddenly, for the first time, fight slams its opponent right over, and I don’t give up, I don’t run. I decide I won’t miss this opportunity, no matter how anxious I may feel leading up to it, and I make it happen.
So you see, this need for travel has to be in my genes somewhere. How else can I have such overwhelming anxiety that I feel like I’m going to faint during public speaking, during literal classroom discussions, yet I intentionally and eagerly fly to other parts of the world, alone? This is the only explanation I have for how I ended up sleeping in the Orlando airport overnight, alone (more on this later); for how I got onto that connecting flight, alone, my hand tethered to my passport and my mind tethered to a mix of nerves and excitement. Stepping onto that plane felt like saying goodbye to an older, outdated version of myself and stepping into who I wanted to become. It felt like dismissing the girl who would rather give up and give in than fight for what she wanted. If I had let my anxious thoughts dictate my life, I never would have gotten on that plane. And I would have missed out on the experience of a lifetime.
And some parting advice
See, the thing about travel is that it isn’t too hard, not really. It certainly has its moments, its fair share of frustrations and stress and confusion and exhaustion. But it isn’t hard, not at its core. The hardest part, surprisingly, is going. Once you decide to do it, once you decide to ignore all the reasons “why not” and you get yourself there, everything changes. And you won’t ever go back to that old version of you, the one who was full of excuses to stay, reasons to cancel, suggestions for “another time” (and guys, “another time” can and will turn into “never” if you say it enough). Now, thanks in part to that piece of my genetic makeup that told me “go” the same way your knee jerks on impact, I have both the drive and the confidence to do this again, and again, and again.