The other question I get asked constantly is usually phrased as, "You're not going alone, are you?" Somehow, me being with someone else as clueless as I am about how to do this is much more comforting to people than me going it alone. I do have a friend who is interested in coming for the first few months if I leave in April, but it is looking like outside factors might be bumping up my departure date quite a bit. And that's okay. I've always wanted to do this alone.
Part of it is because I went to San Francisco twice with my best friend Reggie, and he will be the first to tell you, I relied on him too much. I don't learn things unless I do them myself, and with Reggie and his handy-dandy iphone, I was pretty much free to research where we should go and let him handle it from there. So when he left early on the second trip, and I had some time to myself, it was raining and I was bored out of my mind, no Reggie and no iphone. I hadn't found my own travel swagger, I had always had Reggie's. I want my own swagger.
Mostly though, my reason is in this conversation I had with my grandma (shout out! I love you Grandma):
Me: "So do you think what I'm doing is weird? I don't mean do you think people will think this is weird, I mean do you think this is weird?"
Grandma: "Sandi, I don't think anything any of my children do is weird, I just think it's different than what I would want to do."
Me (So happy that my grandma is so awesome and that she referred to me as one of her children): "But do you get why I want to do this?...why I feel like I need to do this? It's just that, let's face it, I didn't do my job as a mom, I didn't finish college, I didn't find a career--I don't even know one I'd want, I don't have a husband or a family or a house. I'm 35 and I haven't accomplished anything. I just feel like doing this would be such an accomplishment...something I could say I did...something I could say I finished...all by myself."
And my grandma? Yeah, she gets it.
No comments:
Post a Comment