A month from today I will be in Iceland. A month from today I will be starting the grandest Adventure Trip I've planned to date, one I've been working on and saving for, for nearly 3 years now. I have lived north in Burlington VT, south in New Orleans LA and west in San Diego CA. I have driven across this beautiful country twice and have been able to pepper in other road trips allowing me to see 41 out of these 50 states. I have been to Canada and Mexico and parts of Central America and the Caribbean, but I have never been across the pond.
Ever since I was 14 in Latin class with Ms. Wilma Slyoff, who didn't teach just a language class, but also a culture and history class with so many stories of the ancient past accented with her own experiences in Rome, I have been dying to go to Rome. I'm not sure I ever thought going abroad in high school was something I could do, but I have vivid memories of believing I would study abroad while in College. But alas, I met my ex-husband very young, and the long distance from VT to PA was already so hard, the idea of making it harder was too much. Years later I remember starting to plan our honeymoon and finally get my butt to Rome, but I was never able to get him to use his vacation time on me, visiting his friends and family was more important, so unfortunately we never had a honeymoon. This weekend marked 4 years of being legally divorced and this July will be 5 years since I made the hardest decision of my life so far---The choice to hit that restart button even though I had once truly believed, I knew who would be the one I'd share this human experience with and see the world with.
I often joke my twenties were a wash but I'm doing a disservice to myself by saying that. While the first half was mostly consumed by the life plan of someone else, and the second half was desperately trying to realign myself with myself after so much pain and heartache across this last decade of my life, I know I wouldn't be the me I am today if you take any moment of it away. When I made the choice to listen to my heart, to acknowledge that I knew the life I had chosen wasn't the life that was right for me, I certainly didn't think it would be such a struggle to find the life I knew I deserved. The life path my ex-husband wanted, wasn't a bad path, it just wasn't for me and he wasn't the right person for me. That was such a hard thing to accept, to realize that I was just figuring me out and yet I had made the colossal choice of picking the human I was going to grow with and possibly raise children with. How could I have ever really known what was right for me when I hadn't finished forming what "me" means. Hell I'm not sure that definition is ever a static thing. But regardless, I married someone when I knew I wasn't ready to be married because there was enough pressure that it was what I was supposed to do, and the military unfortunately seriously incentivizes it. I'm not sure we spend enough time acknowledging that getting married and buying a house and having kids is only one of many options for how you can choose to live your life. Oftentimes lately it hasn't always felt as much of a choice to not have a significant other as my peer group ramps up the frequency of weddings and baby showers, but at the end of the day I know I would rather be alone than be partially in something. At the end of the day I know damn well I have not survived my personal tribulations to settle for a love that doesn't start a fire in me.
I think one of my limiting beliefs is that because I am not in a romantic relationship I cannot love or be loved the way I so eagerly desire. I think we unjustly diminish the love between friends, and family, and especially those we've chosen as our family. I may not have a person during this phase of my life, but I know that I have a lot of people out in this world that I have been blessed to know and to love that love me too. It's lovely to have that go to person to share your highs and your lows, but for now I'm lucky I have a myriad of people to go to for these kinds of moments. And even though I no longer desire marriage and the idea of kids doesn't feel like something that will align with what I picture for my life, I still sometimes covet the happy marriages and cherub like babies, but I also know at times others may covet my privilege of solitude and ability to travel. I think life is richer though when we share our experiences versus compare and take the time to acknowledge that we're all wonderfully unique and no one else's path will be the same as yours.
The last five years I have learned to do so many things on my own, from the simplest thing as a meal, to a movie at the theater, to a concert, to traveling alone on a road trip, and now to travel abroad. There were so many things I had wanted to do in the first half of my twenties that I allowed my relationship to prevent me from doing. Now there are so many things that I wish I could share with a significant other but I have no desire to wait for that person to live the life I want. It already feels like I've been waiting so long for my life to begin and here we are, I could ostensibly be a third of the way through it. So now 16 years later after that first thought of wanting to see another country, in honor of turning 30 I am taking myself to five countries across three weeks. I have a tendency to journal when I'm overwhelmed, stressed, or sad. But this trip, and the beginning of this new decade is something I've been looking forward to and I know eventually I'll want to remember as much as I can.
So this will be my place to catalog the journey of my 30th year.
