Grieving a Year Without Travel

 

I have been asked more times than I can count why we travel as much as we do.  My standard answer is some variation of, "because we never know when we might not be able to."  Enter the year 2020.  Nothing like a global pandemic to drive a point home. 

Nearly overnight one of the world's most powerful passports became just a fancy blue booklet with some neat stamps and too many empty pages inside.  In the grande state of the COVID-19 ridden world, we would not have wanted to use it even if we could.  The risks were just too great.  We don't have the kind of jobs that would allow us to join the trend of "digital nomads" who are now working in comfort at luxury resort properties abroad for extended periods of time.  And unlike the glamorously wealthy, we cannot quarantine repeatedly or access repeat rounds of testing in order to escape to a remote vacation locale without either bankrupting ourselves or losing our jobs. 

While the pandemic has definitely played to our strengths as introverts, and the year has not been without a few shining moments, it has been a slog.  Adam would get on a plane today if I would agree to it.  I am not typically the one in this relationship who has to be the voice of reason and I can't say that I much care for it.  Especially when it means denying my own daydream desires too.  One day at a time has become our mantra with frequent reminders to try to avoid worrying about the things we cannot control.  It is good advice always, but I think we must still acknowledge that the now year long absence of travel has started to take its toll.  

Keep your head down, don't think too far ahead, and just get through it has been the collective survivalist mentality.  That is an abrupt about face from years of perpetually looking forward to the next exciting trip or experience.  I know it is not just us who are feeling this way, but I did think we were just mourning the loss of our privilege.  In December though, I read an article from Popular Science that afforded me some new context. 

"How to Spend Money for Maximal Happiness" (Popular Science online, December 21, 2020) suggested that this prolonged miasma was also about the loss of time.  Relationships, jobs, finances and such can all recover or reinvent themselves, but there is absolutely no way to regain the time we have lost.  Reading that made me realize that we have been existing in a prolonged state of loss and grief.  

We have never really been "stuff" oriented in our home, and the article spoke to our "experience vs. stuff" values as well further highlighting why we are feeling the way the way we do with no travel on the horizon.  

"...the things we buy might make us happy in the moment, but that feeling atrophies over time.  We get used to things that we have, and we feel like we need to keep getting more stuff to maintain those feelings...  People believe material goods last—and they do last in a physical sense, but that doesn’t mean you continue to derive value from it.  Experiences are fleeting, but not in a psychological sense. They live on in our memories, they live on in the stories we tell.  For example, people get boosts of pleasure from planning and anticipating experiences, like vacations—and then again when recalling those memories later.  That’s partly because experiences often cultivate connection and feelings of belonging."

 The stages of grief are real.