Repatriation Part 2: Undateable Me

In my last blog, I mentioned three things I wanted to focus on after Repatriating back to the States.  The first was rehabilitating my leg.  The second, which that blog focused on, was my career.  And the third was finally feeling ready to give my heart to someone, which is waaaaaaaay easier said than done.

Since moving home, I've realized how travel has made me completely undateable.  Here's why:

#1 I AM FIERCELY INDEPENDENT

Growing up, I've always been what I call, a floater.  I have many friends of different backgrounds, with different interests, in different social circles.  I only have a few very close friends that know me inside and out.  Because of that, I've always done things pretty much on my own.  The older I got, the more independent I became.  I started going out to eat on my own, going to the cinema on my own, and visiting countries solo.

I'm pretty sure guys don't know how to deal with an independent chick.  I genuinely believe there is nothing a man could do for me that I can't do for myself.

Takin' in that view: Cliffs of Moher

#2 I AM A SOCIAL RECLUSE

Because of that independence, I've become too comfortable with my own company.  Not to mention, I'm incredibly introverted.  If I spend a day with someone, I need two or three secluded days to recover.  The amount of energy it takes for me to go out and meet people now is exhausting.  And honestly, I've been alone for so long that I really would have no idea how to be someones second half.

Dudes, correct me if I'm wrong, but y'all seem to like those -needy- girls.

Upside of a recluse: Kilroy selfies

#3 I AM A SEASONED SOLO-ER

I started traveling alone out of necessity...the majority of my friends (aka, -all- of them) had their own lives.  They either already were in relationships, or they at least had the best friends that I never really had, so why would they want to come with me?  I've become seasoned at goin' alone.  And I'm pretty sure because of that, I make a horrible travel partner.  For example, a friend had come to visit me when I lived in Thailand.  Early one morning, she was really sick and needed to go to the hospital.  I told her to get a tuk tuk, then I went back to bed.  When I woke up, I felt horrible (and still do).  I didn't think to go with her because I'm used to figuring things out and doing them alone.  I just don't think about others...not because I'm a horrible person, but because I've never had to.

Also, I'm used to doing things on my own terms.  I literally have no one to answer to but myself when I'm on the road.

Making furry friends!

#4 I HAVE ZERO FASHION SENSE 

Most females I know enjoy dressing up.  Dresses, heals, bling.  Me?  Nope.  Travel requires comfort.  Sitting on an overnight bus for 12 hours to get to a hostel and immediately start exploring your new city takes jeans or leggings, t-shirts, and hiking shoes.  That sense of fashion has definitely followed me home.  I am not a girly girl, and as much as I try to dress up, I'm uncomfortable and fail miserably at it.  I'm not one of those flirty girls that dudes seem to flock to, I'm more like "just one of the guys".

I don't care what I look like...because I'm fabulous regardless 

#5 TRAVEL HAS MADE ME SELFISH 

I'm selfish and I fully admit that.  I've been too busy discovering myself to invest in anyone else.  When I lived overseas, I built walls around my heart because I get attached easily and put my heart into things far more often than I should.  And it backfires every single time.  When I moved back to the States, I decided to drop those walls and all it's caused me since is pain and misery.

The ideal dude: Mr. Darcy, who, I'm sure, real dudes have no idea who he is

#6 IT'S HARD TO RELATE TO WESTERNERS

There are very few Americans that have passports, and even fewer still that venture beyond cruise ships or Mexican beach resorts.  I was genuinely surprised that I didn't meet many Americans in Peru.  In Europe?  Yes, there are more around, but not nearly as many as other nationalities who wanderlust with the best of them.  Because I travel, I'm incredibly open-minded and see things from a million different views.  I also have a lot of stories, and traveling stories are pretty much all that I know or have to talk about.  I feel like people think I'm pretentious or think I'm trying to make them jealous by talking about my experiences.  I'm 100% not.  It's just what I know.  Therefore, I don't say much around people anymore, because I don't want to push them away.

Guys don't seem to care about my stories or ask questions to keep the conversation going.  If you're not interested in my life experiences, I'm not interested in you. #SorryNotSorry

Conquering Inca ruins in Ollantaytambo

#7 I DON'T KNOW HOW TO FLIRT

Admittedly, I've never been in a relationship.  I've been on a few dates, but nothing that ever amassed into anything worth talking about.  I don't know how to be a flirty girly girl.  I'm honest and forthright, and I don't play stupid games.  Ain't nobody got time for that.

If I like a guy, I tell them.  And I'm definitely discovering that guys can't handle a girl that knows what she wants.  I've been rejected more times than I can count...but at least I'm not wasting time pretending to be someone I'm not.

Heeeeey...goin' my way? Jokusarlon, Iceland

#8 I'LL NEVER STOP TRAVELING

This is non-negotiable.  Travel is vital to my system.  It's therapy.  It brings me balance.  If I meet a dude that wants to travel with me, great.  If not, he better be fine with me being gone for weeks at a time because that's who I am and I'll never stop exploring this world.  The moment I'm back from one trip, I'm already dreaming and planning the next five trips.  That's what comes from meeting people abroad and hearing about what they've done and where they've been...It opens the door to so many more places to see!

Machu Picchu opened the door for six more World Wonders I HAVE to conquer!

So...if you're a travelin' dude that likes travelin', independent chicks, give ya girl a shout!  I'm not the one missing out.  You are.

Happy Trails!

And because I Go It Alone...

Repatriating Part 1: Starting a Career

I've been back in the States for three years now, which is incredibly hard to believe.  It really doesn't seem like I've been home for that long.  It's easy to say that for the last two years, I have been suffering with depression.  It's caused by a culmination of many things, but for the most part, it's from the complete loneliness of moving home and being completely un-relateable to the majority of the people I'm surrounded by.

When you spend years living abroad, it changes something within you.  I came back and everything was the same.  But I was different.  It happened every time, which is why I kept leaving and finding somewhere else to go.

My first move overseas was to Scotland the year I graduated college.  I had a six-month visa to live and work in the UK.  I was working at a hotel in the Highlands, pretty secluded, and my boss was an absolute nutter.  Combine that with your best friends saying how much they missed you and wanted you to come home, I quit my visa after four and a half months and went home.  I was expecting this grand welcoming with my friends inquiring about my trip and what it was like in Scotland.  I was expecting to couple-up with this guy I had been in love with.  I was expecting a lot more than, "hey, you're home, that's cool...".  It was in that moment that I realized what I'd lost: An opportunity to do something that no one I knew (or still know from home) will ever have...an opportunity to explore the world and myself and fill a void that most of my girlfriends fill with marriage and babies.  (not meaning any offense by that...most girls love babies, some prefer plane tickets).  It was in that moment that I decided that was the last time I'd do anything because of someone else.  It was in that moment that I became selfish.

The first time I moved abroad and my family came to visit.  They don't visit me anymore.

It's a funny thing, coming home.  Nothing changes.  Everything looks the same, feels the same, even smells the same.  You realize what's changed is you.
- F. Scott Fitzgerald

Fast forward 13 years and 25 countries later.  I moved back for many reasons.  First and foremost, I needed to let my leg fully heal...I just needed to rest.  Second, there was 100% no fulfillment in my career as a teacher working in a system that doesn't value you, but know's you're more than replaceable if you don't agree with how things work.  Third, I was (am) finally ready to give my heart to someone, something that apparently is less than likely to occur - wait, scratch that - I have given out my heart, I just haven't received one back...I am an expert at unrequited love.

For length's sake, I'll just focus on one of those reasons for moving back in this blog: My career.

I now have a job that I love.  I love it.  I feel like I finally have a purpose and I'm doing something that makes a difference, all while challenging me and expanding my knowledge daily.  And because of that, I have no plans to leave.  However, while my career has settled, my social life has become non-existent, which I'm blaming more and more on my previous life as an Expat.

You see, I can talk Travel all day long.  Where I've been, where I plan to go, where you've been and are planning to go...what it's like to enjoy a bowl of noodles in a hawker in Singapore, or what the ancient stones that make up Angkor Wat feel like under your fingers.  Traveling is my passion, it awakens my soul.  But I can't talk about it anymore.  Because where I live, the people don't understand it, and I almost get the sense that they feel like I'm pretentious and trying to make them jealous.  I'm not.  Traveling is just...me.  It's who I am and what I know and I love to encourage others to get out there.

Where I am now, I just can't talk about the places and feelings I've experienced, because I've learned that most people I know respond negatively to that, and I've isolated myself, becoming a mere shell of the person I am.  Detached and surviving.

Travel, when undertaken habitually, becomes a potent intoxicant...The more you do it, the more you find a way to keep doing it.  It becomes vital to the system.
- Josh Gates, Memoirs of a Monster Hunter

That quote, as I'm sure anyone who travels will tell you, is spot on.  Travel is vital to my system.  I booked an impromptu trip last month to Peru, after a rough month at work and my depression deepening to the point of insanity and mental breakdowns.  I had a great time and felt happy again.  But when I got back, I realized that trips now just act like Band Aids, covering a deep crevasse of a wound that feels like it's never going to heal.  The Peru Band Aid lasted only a few days, before it fell off leaving the wound festering and bleeding for everyone to see.

I yearn for views like this. 
Cusco, Peru

I came home from Peru with the newest edition of National Geographic Traveler in my mailbox and immediately started "Oooh-ing" and "Awweee-ing" while thumbing through the pages.  There's an article on Scandinavia, which I immediately squealed that I need to go back, to Norway this time.  Norway will have to wait, though, purely because it's one of the most expensive countries in the world and I should probably get the cheap ones out of the way first.

So, to my friends here, I honestly try not to bother you about my adventures unless you ask...but it's definitely a struggle not to bring up my preference for papaya salad when you say you want Pad Thai for lunch.  To my international friends, the connections I've made: Let's meet up!  In a coffee shop in Bavaria, or at Petra, the Taj Mahal, or Chichen Itza.  I'm down for whatever, just tell me if I need a jacket :)

Happy Trails!

Photo of the Month: Machu Picchu

I wasn't going to take a vacation this year.  Even considering the itchy feet I have been feeling since the spring, I was still going to focus on the trip I'm planning for next year.  I was going to spend my vacation traveling around Colorado and visiting the places I haven't seen since I was a child.  But then August happened.  And August was shit.  I worked several calls that reinforced my belief that when your time is up, it's definitely up.  Then I covered the worst call of my career, and decided I needed to get the hell out of dodge, purely for my mental stability.

Peru has been on my list for over a decade and I kept putting it on the back burner.  Mainly because I was living in England, so exploring Europe.  Then I was living in Southeast Asia, so exploring Asia.  And with plans to go back to Asia next year, I decided Peru...if not now, then when?  I found an amazing deal on flights (yo, you gotta be flexible and patient when looking for flights, and look at many different sites to find something that will work for you), and I booked it.

This was the most impromptu trip I've booked.  And also a rare one where I was traveling all on my own, not meeting at least one person I know somewhere along my route.  This was all me.  And all I knew I wanted to do was to make it to MachuPicchu.  So with literally no plans, no destinations (besides Cusco and MachuPicchu) in mind, I set off.  I could go on and on about Peru, but for this Photo of the Month, I'll focus on the reason why Peru happened: MP.

When I had decided over a decade ago to visit MP, I wanted to do it proper: trek the Inca Trail.  However, due to unforeseen circumstances during my stint in Asia, trekking up mountains is pretty much impossible for me now...especially on an impromptu trip booking.  So I did it the tourist way (not that trekking isn't touristy, it definitely is, especially in Peru).  Bus from Cusco to Ollantaytambo.  Early morning train from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes.  Then bus up the side of the mountain to MP.  There's a good, probably 1/4 mile of stairs you still have to climb to get to MP...which was definitely trek-enough for me :) 

Going to MP, I knew that you are supposed to enter with a tour guide.  So at the gate, there was a guide and a group of people, which I asked if I needed to wait.  He said yes, so I waited.  We all went in together where he began explaining who-knows-what because it was all in Spanish.  My 8th grade Spanish was good enough to get me by in the cities, but to go on a full tour in Spanish?  Nope.  The day before, I was stuck on a full-day tour of the Sacred Valley in Spanish, and I wasn't about to go through that again.  When the guide was finished saying whatever he was saying, I asked him if there was an English tour.  He said no.  I didn't believe him, but I also didn't want to walk back down to find an English tour guide...so I got lost in the crowd and went off by myself.  I'm pretty good doing shit on my own.

Taking the bus from Aguas Calientes, the further up we drove, the heavier the clouds and fog became.  I was worried we wouldn't be able to see anything when we got to the citadel...and I was right.  Once I got to the top, after climbing all those stairs and the ruins appeared, everything was covered in clouds and fog.  I became incredibly emotional, as I have a tendency to do, and started crying -- not because of the fog, but because it had taken me SO long to get there, and considering my physical state, I fucking made it.  I knew, through patience, the clouds would break sooner or later, so I found a spot to sit and reflect on my life and what brought me here, and I waited...after about a half hour, the clouds parted and MachuPicchu was more than I ever could imagine.

MP - after the clouds and fog broke...a sight I will never forget

MP is enormous...far bigger than it is in the countless photos I've seen of it.  I spent my time exploring the ruins, feeling the majesty of the Inca and what they accomplished.  I also couldn't get over the fact that I was incredibly dehydrated, because common sense left me in my excitement, I forgot my water, and for some strange reason, thought there would be water vendors amidst ancient ruins.  There's not, if you're wondering ;)  Luckily, wearing my Colorado t-shirt, some fellow Coloradans started chatting with me and offered me a bottle of water they had...they brought extra because they're smart.  I'm sure they had a premonition that they would meet an idiot along their route that they could help out.

MachuPicchu is a place you need to experience.  You can't just see a photo of it and be satisfied.  And it now has me on a quest to conquer each wonder of the Seven Wonders of the World.  MachuPicchu is a pretty good first one, if you ask me.  Never give up on your dreams...no matter how long it takes you to achieve them or what obstacles you have to overcome.  They're worth it.  Every damn one.

Happy Trails!