Kindness of Strangers

Until recently, one of my favorite ways to spend my lunch break was surfing the Internet for round-the-world travel blogs. Usually I would start with one that I had recently heard about, and by the time I finished my sandwich I had read eight others, linking from one site to the next to the next. RTW travel blogs are like snowflakes: at first glance each one looks the same, but upon closer inspection no two are alike. When we first began planning our trip, the blogs were a fertile source of inspiration and ideas. Maikael and I are both people who are all excited by potential and possibility: just reading a blog post or viewing a photo gallery would instantly transport me to a place I’d never considered, and suddenly I wanted to add it to our developing itinerary. It was a fun way to research and imagine, as we counselors say, our many “possible selves.”

During one of my recent lunch breaks, as I was reading a blog from a Canadian couple, I found myself feeling drained and irritable. I suddenly realized that, as we have honed our plans, reading the blogs has become a way of seeking confirmation of our choices. Or, more accurately, it’s served as a mechanism for second-guessing our choices. Now, reading the blogs wasn’t so much inspirational as anxiety-producing.

It’s taken me awhile to understand that there is no one way to travel around the world. Just like the clothes we wear, so, too, do we possess a unique travel style, a way of moving about the world that is some reflection of our personality. I was born in the Year of the Horse. An astrologer once told me that, like a horse, I love roaming free in fenced in spaces. I don’t necessarily need to see the fence or hop the fence to know it’s there; as long as I have a sense of movement and freedom, I am content. This sums up my travel preference. I like having some structure to my travel planning, but at some point I just want to cast aside the rules and do it my way. This is the point I’m at today.

I’ve stopped reading other travel blogs for the time being. I feel like I need to reconnect to my own purpose and vision for this trip and stop relying on others’ way of doing things. I have absorbed all that I can, and with the trip nearly four weeks off, what’s the point in questioning the choices we’ve already made? I’m ready to stop talking and start doing, and I have to trust that the way we’ve planned this trip is the right way for us.