Transient Transplant

It hit me yesterday morning when I woke up in a cold sweat at 2am that I was going to Cuba in 3 days and wanted to spill my cookies immediately.

This happens before every trip I take.  I tend to freak out and convince myself I’ve made a huge mistake every single time I get on a plane, so I know to ignore it and try to chill out.  But the panic came a few days earlier than it normally would have.

Maybe it’s because my coworker told me to bring my own toilet paper and the bathroom situation is rough.  I haven’t ever been to a communist country before, so the changes are going to be vast compared to my European and Aussie travels where I could hop on WIFI and communicate fairly regularly if needed.

Maybe it’s because I decided to learn as much Spanish on Duolingo as I could and now my Spanish skills basically include me saying useless things like, “The spider eats the penguin,” which I am praying is a phrase based on the vocabulary I knew at the time and not a real situation that comes up in life.

Or maybe it’s because I’m rusty on my traveling.

It’s a weird thing to say because I have done nothing but travel this year.  But it’s been through the US.  I know what I’m getting into.  I have data and texts/calls on my phone so I can get a hold of anyone, and talk to Siri while I’m driving and she’s taking me down some road I’m convinced is wrong.

Taking a trip to a place that is a timewarp to the 1960’s is a massive part of the appeal for me in Havana.  But knowing that comes with traveling limitations will be new as well.

I used to travel to Europe a few times a year.  Nothing makes me feel more like myself than being in total culture shock.  Some people freeze up.  I thrive.  It’s a weird thing to love, but knowing how other people live on other parts of the globe is amazing to me.

But I haven’t done that in two years now.  I moved to Seattle and that meant more US travel for me and less “out of the comfort zone” travel, unless Kansas and Utah count as that.

I woke up in a panic, ready to vomit, thinking maybe I’m too old to keep up with this.  There was something to being young and spry that made me fearless.  Then I remembered that I’ve never done anything but harbor fear before every trip.

The unknown is scary.  No matter how many books I read or how long I have wanted to go to a place, it doesn’t matter.  I’m naturally anxious until I get there.  And once I arrive I quickly realize everything is fine, and I love every second of it.

I always think back to my first trip every time something like this happens.  I went to France when I was 17 on a school trip.  I was with people who knew what was going on, everything was planned out, all I had to do was stay with the group.  I even took French so had a basic background in the language.  There was nothing to panic about.

But I freaked out.  I hated flying.  And I’d never been outside of the US.  The unknown is horrifying.

Then our flight got cancelled and I had to call my parents to pick me up from the airport.  I was convinced it was a sign I shouldn’t be going on the trip.  What was the universe trying to tell me?  Stay here.  Don’t do this scary thing.

But I woke up, got my ass on that plane the next day, and flew in with my stomach in knots for hours convinced I was never coming back alive and would never see my loved ones again.

The second I set foot in the city, I was in love.  All of my fear was gone, and I knew there wouldn’t be enough minutes in this trip to fulfill my thirst to explore this place.  It would never be enough.  On the plane ride home I was depressed, knowing a whole world was out there and I’d never see it all.  So I took out my journal, and at 17 planned where I was going to go on my next trip, and I would plan it myself and do exactly what I wanted.

Fast forward 4 years later and I took that trip with two of my friends in college.  Then I started traveling alone.  And it was horrifying every single time.  But it was a high that I’ve never gotten from anything else.

And it wasn’t always easy.  The nightmare that was the first few days of my life in Prague when I had the genius idea to move there for a month after college is one for the record books (if you haven’t heard the story, get a drink in me someday and I’ll tell you the series of unfortunate events that would seem fitting for a movie).

To say I was broken was an understatement.  I woke up the next day thinking that I didn’t know how I would get out of bed. I had to talk myself through every single step of getting ready for the day.  But I forced myself out of my apartment every day to have more difficult interactions and learned my full potential. And by the end, I actually enjoyed my time there, and I was a pro at making an ass of myself on a daily basis and feeling zero shame.  And I knew I would be fine traveling alone from that point on.

But there’s always that twinge of fear.  I suppose it keeps me honest.  It’s a hard thing, breaching your comfort zone.  More people have heard my travel stories and tell me how brave they think I am for getting out there.  I laugh every single time, because brave is not a word I would ever use to describe myself.  I’m terrified.  But I do it anyways.  I get there, and then the unknown is brought into light, and I realize that I didn’t actually have anything to be afraid of in the first place.