UNPACKING THE TRIP, Part 1.

When last we met I wrote a post entitled "I Don't Wanna Go?".  Well, I went.  Now I'm home.  Home with the usual disorientation, jet lag, and an unexpected positive Covid test.  Travel is fun! 

This, from my previous pre-trip post:  "Ive learned ways to calm my anxieties around air travel, not sleeping well, gut-upsetting new diet, too much stimulation, too  much busyness, being with strangers, getting confused in new cities, and generally just not being in my familiar life.  But still calming anxiety is not the same as eliminating it.  My highly-sensitive constellation of traits all go on high, high alert."

Yep. All of that.  Except I completely lost my "calming" skill set!  Oh, I did my deep breathing through some anxious moments, but my usual meditation practices fell by the wayside as my routine was dictated by the day's itinerary and I gave into slothfulness around commitment to making time for quiet solitude.  So, yes, I had a few "travel freak-out" episodes where I was overwhelmed, over-stimulated, over-socialized, and under-rested and "forgot" my mindfulness practices to get me through it.  I cried instead.  I had several completely sleepless nights interspersed with merely restless nights, and a few glorious full nights of sleep, which didn't help that much.  I stuck as closely as possible to my usual diet -- no red meat, no alcohol.  But eating three full restaurant meals a day, with pastries and desserts!, wrecked havoc with my gut, not surprisingly.

Many people absolutely love travel, love to be lost in a new city, love to try new foods and drinks, love to mix and mingle with strangers, love to plan and plot and play out all the logistics it takes to get from point A to point Z and all points in between, love to experiment and experience things as far from familiar as possible.  I am not that person.

But I do love seeing places I've heard about, learning about their history and culture, experiencing something novel, interesting, and beautiful, sharing it all with Hub.  And I accept that in order to do that I'll have to endure some personal discomforts that my nervous system wants to resist.  I am working mightily to mitigate my hesitancy with persistent practices that calm and reassure that all is well in spite of feeling like I just want to go home to my refuge.  And in spite of aforementioned challenges this time, I mostly did GREAT!  So there's that.

Also on the positive side, we walked and walked and walked and walked -- averaging over the three weeks, about 13,000 steps a day -- generally 5-7 miles a day.  I'm so grateful for my dedication to healing my hip issue over the past year to allow me to be able to move this much. Walking was fun and necessary. 

We saw iconic sites and beautiful scenery, met nice people, learned new things, made "pro" and "con" lists of our experience and made decisions about future trips.  By the end I was very ready to come home, but not desperately longing to, so that's progress of a sort.  

Unfortunately one of the challenges was both of us coming down with colds a week into the trip.  Me first, then Hub, who had it worse.  It was annoying since we'd worn masks on planes and buses, to avoid close breathing contact.  But still, we noticed many of our fellow travelers also seemed to be coughing a bit and we all just chalked it up to what everyone said was a cold or allergies.  How naive/forgetful we've all become!  Once home, Hub continued to feel lethargic, so finally tested for Covid.  Positive.  I was negative.  I may have had it earlier, or not.  We were both vaccinated two weeks before leaving, but vaccination means "you won't get it as bad", not "you won't get it at all."  Now I think half of our fellow travelers with "allergies" were probably Covid positive too.  We join the ranks of so many of our friends who have returned from trips with a positive test.  This is Hub's first bout with the virus.  He's no longer an outlier. And I have another thing to add to my travel anxiety list.

With this little "travel sucks" rant out of the way, my next post will be much more positive as I review our the ship, our trip, and all the really cool things we saw and did.  So don't be deterred....it's gonna get better!  I just want to reassure those among you who share my travel angst that it's real, it's OK to feel this way for good reasons, and it doesn't have to stand in the way of also having a pretty great time.  

At least, that's the view from here...©