So there are days that I have considered buying a recorder that would play the following information: “Hi I’m Lauren. From America. New Jersey. Math teacher. Traveling since July 1st. Quit my job. Ha ha yeah no idea when I am coming home. Started in Ireland. Transiberian Railroad. Yep, traveling on my own. Working holiday in Australia. Going everywhere there.”
Of coarse I am joking, but I can’t tell you how many times a day I tell new people in my hostel the same information over and over again. Sometimes I sit and think about how many people I have met from all over the world while traveling. It really is part of the great experience. It also can be a bit repetitive at the same time.
Most people you cross paths with, you have a fun time, and then part ways perhaps the next day. You find where they are from, what their story is, and perhaps some random fact about them. It’s funny what I remember from each person. Names are really hard for me. Nine out of ten times in my head I just refer to them as to where they are from: “Canada, California, South Africa, Frenchy, Melbourne, Brazil”. Or, if they have a really cool profession they might get remembered for that “circus worker (I am not joking), Harvard (I felt smarter just being in his presence), teacher (I’ve run into quite a few of those!)”. Back in the beginning, in Ireland, I tried hard to make an attempt to stay in touch with everyone I met. I had this ever growing list of people to add as facebook friends. But it got to the point where it was just so overwhelming and not worth it.
But….every now and then…..you meet someone that does keep your attention. For me, I usually feel a connection with that person upon first glance. I make eye contact and something clicks inside of me, and I just know, this person is different. I immediately want to know more about them and am drawn in by their knowledge of where they have been and where they are going. And, big surprise, it is almost always a person that is in it for the long haul, just as I am.
So I make friends with this person and we enjoy our time together, whether that be the day, a few days, a week, etc and I start to feel a connection. We have conversations with depth to them. Perhaps we even share the true reasons why we decided to drop everything and travel (because let’s face it, we do all have it). I begin to wonder - if I had met this person at home, what would have come about? Would we have become great friends? Would we have become something more? Would this person be as interesting to me if we were not both in our traveling situations? To me, there is almost something exotic about the fellow backpacker on the road, and it is nice to go enjoy the sights without an entire focus on pub crawls and getting absolutely pissed every night.
After our fun time together we always have to part ways. Some goodbyes have been harder than others. Every single time this has happened I have been going in the complete opposite direction as the other person. I have the greatest luck ever! One particular person that comes to mind was on his way to New York City next….an hour from where I used to live. Awesome. So then I go through a period of being frustrated. What’s the point? Why even bother trying to establish a connection, a friendship with someone if we are just going to part ways and probably never see each other again? I guess I am craving a long term friendship that isn’t being kept alive via the internet.
So I get cranky and sad and wonder, do these people perhaps feel the same way about me? Are they also sad to see me gone? Or do they have thicker skin when it comes to the randomness of meetings others? And yet - here I am a few hours later in the hostel common room eager to start all over again. I guess I never learn my lesson. Or perhaps I have realized that being with these people for even for a few days is better than not being with them at all. These people are helping me grow and change whether they realize this or not.
I could write paragraphs on the people that meant something to me. I could mention them by name and talk about how fond I am of them. How I talk about them to other people, especially my family back home. How I admire them for their courage to hit the road like I did. But….I think that the people that I really did make a connection with are very possibly reading this post themselves. You know who you are, and I miss you.
