Revelations of a Homebound Travel Junkie During Covid-19
August 2021: I wrote the post below almost exactly a year ago, and like finding a time capsule, it’s fascinating to hear my past self reflect on daily life, our identities, and plans for the future during such an uncertain time…
July 2020:
Jeff and I have built our adult lives, and to a large extent our identities, around travel. It was the foundation of our relationship and led to our engagement, it punctuated all our years together, jazzed up our Christmas cards and saturated all our conversations. It was how we were known to our friends and “where are you off to next?” was the easiest conversation starter at family gatherings. “That one time in...” preceded most of our best memories and life changing moments.
Even though we were, and still are, fully based in the US, we’ve always had one foot on the plane and never fully unpacked our dop-bags. We cured the dreaded ‘post trip blues’ by simply booking another one. Always looking forward to another country, adventure or experience became like a drug to us, flooding our brains with serotonin and our bellies with warm adrenaline as I confirmed a new flight and watched my mileage points add up. Researching must-see monuments and attractions, off the beaten path villages, local customs, foods and must-do activities brightened my work day and earmarked each dollar we made.
Now, I’m sure most travelers will deny this, but once you consider yourself a “traveler” and have visited more than the few countries that border your own, a sense of cultural superiority starts to creep into your mind. You begin to think you know something others do not, that you’re privy to certain secrets of the world your more domestically inclined friends couldn’t possibly understand. You feel like with each new trip you transcend a bit higher above your colleagues back home and roll your eyes at those ‘two-week tourists.’
I remember when friends talked about staycations, or spending their entire, hard-earned vacation time a mere three hours away from their hometown, I silently scoffed at their plans. Didn’t they want to see the art in Florence or the vineyards of France? Feel the lightness in their stomach as a steel 777 behemoth lifted off US soil? Didn’t they want to eat weird food, hear languages they didn’t understand, or get lost down a Parisian side street? Maybe feel a little uncomfortable, or worse, vulnerable?
“Get out of here!” I screamed in my mind, “Heck, I’ll go with you!” I thought. It was inconceivable to me that anything profound or enlightening could happen within the same state or even the same country in which one lived. True growth happened out there, not here I thought.
I smile at my shallowness now. “Silly girl,” I think, “you were young and kind of a brat. It’s OK. I forgive you. Thanks motherhood...and now Coronavirus for showing me the error of my ways.”
Ah yes, the defining word of 2020: Coronavirus. We’ve been stuck in the “Good ol’ US of A, like everyone else, since March 9th, 2020 and like any true junkie we’ve had some mean and painful withdrawals. I’ve planned phantom trips, re-read our old blog posts, scrolled through our Instagram and photos from years past. I’ve stared at expiry dates on dairy products wondering if maybe by then I’d be able to travel and I’ve had my fair share of full blown melt downs.
And yet, here we are still homebound at the end of July and its actually getting easier. Now, staycations and three-hour trips feel like the most exotic of getaways and make me almost as giddy as a flight to France (almost). Just going to our neighborhood restaurant (outside and masked of course) is cause for makeup, heels and a dress I bought for Corsica. Events I deemed mundane or everyday have become special and glitter with excitement. It turns out that you can eat weird food, hear languages you don’t understand, and get lost down a windy side street in your same zip code!
And I know for a fact that we have grown more within the bounds of our own home during the last few months than we ever have on the road or abroad. With the perspective and devastation unceremoniously wrought on us all by the apocalyptic confluence of Covid-19, mass protests and racial injustice, failure of the education and healthcare system and economic uncertainty, planning world travel right now seems trivial and unimportant. And who knows when that will change.
But when it does, I really hope we take this deeper, newfound appreciation for the simple, concrete things in life: home, family and health, with us when we once again soar off the tarmac and into the glorious, gilded and gritty world outside.
