A year of warm hellos; a year of sad goodbyes.
After six weeks at my parents' house in Oceanside, we packed up the RV and hit the road again.
In some ways, it feels like a new beginning to the trip. We were very, very comfortable there in every way. Physically comfortable, because they were incredibly kind and made space for us to settle in. But also emotionally comfortable. We all bonded so much that we could really, truly be ourselves and just relax and enjoy each other's company. We were just a little family, living our lives together. I enjoyed it more than I think I could describe here, and it was really nourishing and rewarding. It was also really nice to see Mike bond with my parents so much, to the point that, when I was in Orlando and he was there without me, I'd call to say hi and he'd pick up, "Hi! I'm at the Cheesecake Factory with your parents!" Makes me happy.
We were all surprised, I think, by how hard it was to say goodbye. Dad said it felt similar to taking your kid to college for the first time -- like you're releasing them out into the world on their own. I'd grown so accustomed to having them in my day to day life that it made me tear up thinking about being apart again.
Lessons learned from the first leg:
- It's working. The point of this trip was to integrate into people's lives seamlessly enough to create the intimacy that can only come from longer lengths of time together. Things like having a common TV show you watch every week, cooking dinner together, going grocery shopping together, doing the dishes, and saying, "I'm bored! Wanna do something?" We felt completely at home at my parents' house, and they tell us that it felt just as comfortable on their end, too. I'm closer with my parents than I've ever been, and Mike feels fully a part of the family. I don't think this could have been possible in a shorter period of time, without perhaps just living in the same town as someone. This solidly reaffirms for us what we're doing here -- creating intimacy in our lives with the people we love, and we're doing it successfully. This trip is already worth it. It also makes us incredibly excited for our future stops, knowing that it's totally possible to recreate with everyone else along the way.
- For every hello, there's a goodbye. This one we didn't realize until we were pulling away from my parents' house with tears in our eyes. The closer you get with people, the harder it is to say goodbye. So the more we succeed in creating unbreakable bonds with people, the more it'll hurt to move on. It wasn't purely sad, of course -- our sadness was tempered by excitement to keep going and do it all over again -- but the difficulty was unanticipated. But, in the wise words of Winnie the Pooh, how lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard!
- It'll never feel like enough time. We originally planned four weeks in San Diego, and ended up extending to six because of all the side trips and busy-ness. I don't think we could have achieved what we achieved in less than four weeks, and even six didn't feel like enough time. Planning travel days is also tough, because we constantly have to juggle the equally pressing priorities of a) maximizing time with our loved ones (which would imply rushing from place to place where we know people), b) sight seeing so we don't fee like we're missing seeing the country as we go (which would mean removing potential hangout time with our friends and family), and c) making sure there's time to work and do Responsible Adult Stuff. Mostly, we just constantly feel like we're doing none of the three as much as we want to. We're almost two months into our trip, and we can already tell that a year won't feel like enough, and each stop will feel too short.
- We want to keep going. Part of the reason we're doing this trip now is because we're approaching Settle Down age. We wanted to have our adventure so if we choose to settle down somewhere, we'll get it out of our system and feel ready, or at least feel like we're not missing out on other things we hadn't done yet. This might change by the end of the year, but so far, all it's doing is make us want to do this even more. We spend driving time daydreaming about our possible future lives. Maybe we can spend three months a year in SF, three months in Findlay, three months in Orlando, and three months in NOLA every year! Maybe we can spend six months a year with your family and six months a year with my family! Maybe we should rent an RV in Europe and do the next year doing a trip over there! Maybe we can live in a different country every three months! The things we do know for sure are: 1) being near family is becoming increasingly important to us, especially if we do end up having kids; 2) for now, we want to keep adventuring, and want some sort of mobility built into our lives; and 3) how incredibly grateful and lucky we both are to have found a partner who is willing (and excited) to keep our minds open about all of the future possibilities in life, and being okay with not planning for now, and knowing that we might change as we go and to be okay with that change. It's a thrilling life adventure together.
- We're learning more about each other, but not in the ways we expected. You'd think that the reason you'd get to know someone better is just by being with them 24/7, but the truth we're discovering is, closeness comes from experiences, not from time. (Obviously, you need enough time together to have shared experiences, but time itself doesn't necessarily do it.) If we were spending all of our time together but not meeting new people or doing new things, we'd end up just saying the things we usually say and doing the things we usually do. You frankly just don't think to ask certain questions otherwise, not because you don't care, but because it's just never come up. And this is from a couple who spends most of our time just talking to each other. When you spend time with other people, they think to ask the questions you haven't, or conversations come up that wouldn't have otherwise. Our lives are also changing on a daily basis, so we're often finding ourselves in situations we wouldn't have experienced otherwise, which also lets you learn more about the other person. So not only are we creating intimacy with the people we're visiting, but we're getting to know each other on levels I don't know if we ever would have otherwise (or at least, not this quickly). Lucky for me, I'm on this trip with my favorite person in the world!
