Melissa's Travels

I think I'm officially going through Spain withdrawals. Not only did I spend my entire afternoon watching terrible television programming on the Spanish channel, but I spent my 4th of July downing vodka and frescas. Not because I really had any interest in drinking, but because this makeshift vodka con limon helped me feel a little closer to Madrid. I'm not sure if it's so much that I wish I could wake up in Spain tomorrow or just the mere realization that after 3 weeks at home I'm beginning to feel restless. I've officially decided that I wont be returning to Spain in the fall for the teaching job. Instead I've opted to spend this fall applying to graduate school and will head off on a whirlwind trip across Germany, Spain and France with 20+ college students. I'm acutely aware that this is an opportunity of a lifetime, which is partly why I paid little attention when my best friend cautiously questioned if I was sure I could wait that long to return to Europe? But now that I'm back to work and fully realizing that I am here to stay in Seattle for the next 8 months, I can't help but be painfully aware of how hard it is to be back home. Especially when I am reluctant to use that word for the city I live in, let alone the house I sleep in every night.

Last Wednesday I enjoyed coffee with one of my close friends from college, who also recently returned from a several month long stay in Europe. We shared stories, lessons learned and our experiences of adjusting to life back in the states. Both of us admitted that returning to our old lives has been hard, if not impossible at times. How could we have been halfway around the world, meeting new people and having spontaneous adventures on a daily basis that left us filling page upon page in our journals with our reflections on life, friendship, ourselves....while everyone back at home were going to work, watching TV and occasionally getting drunk. How can we return to relate to these people? What do we say when they ask how our trip was or invite us to share stories. How can I even begin to impart my experience to someone? I'll admit that my feelings of estrangement may appear to border on arrogance, but I think it's more of an attempt to keep myself from falling into a mundane day to day routine that is sure to destroy my soul and leave me hitting a midlife crisis soon after my 30th birthday. I don't want to say my life or my choices are superior. They're not. But there is something about the confidence that comes with traveling solo for an extended time that leaves one proud of the life they're living as well as intent on continuing to make choices that leave them without regrets.

When you step onto a plane by yourself that will whisk you to a land of unknowns, you realize just how little is certain in this world. Everything you use to define yourself: friends, family, work, hobbies, possessions, etc. is suddenly taken away from you and you're forced to ask yourself "Who am I when all that is familiar is taken away?" Even after 3 months in Spain, I don't think I have a clear answer to that question. But maybe that's why I find it hard to adjust to life back in Seattle, because I don't feel like the same person I was when I left. It's hard to connect to some people I said good-bye to several months ago and I refuse to let myself feel so comfortable that I once again let myself be defined solely by the familiar.

Russell Schweickart, an Apollo 9 astronaut, once said:: "As you pass from sunlight into darkness and back again every hour and a half, you become startlingly aware how artificial are thousands of boundaries we've created to separate and define. And for the first time in your life you feel in your gut the precious unity of the Earth and all the living things it supports." Schweickart's words ring true for traveling in general, whether it's in relation to a weekend backpacking trip or venturing into outer space, setting out from what is familiar is bound to leave you questioning what you already know and either reaffirming or discarding your former beliefs. Now back in the city I've called home for so long, I'm trying desperately to figure out what my changed mindset means in regards to how I'm going to live my life. As well as attempting to seek out adventures even in the day to day routine and planning travels that hopefully lie ahead in the not so distant future. Tonight, I go to sleep dreaming of the variety of travel adventures I've already experienced, particularly my 12 day long trip to Jackson, Mississippi back in the winter of 2005 to help with Hurricane relief work and learn about racial reconciliation. This trip epitomized the power of traveling in taking you out of your comfort zone, shaking you up and sending you back to what used to make sense in order to sort out the experience and all you learned