I Guess I Wont See You Again

May 22, 2022 Post a Comment

I Won't Meet You Once again

This past year I've gone on a travel rampage. I don't want to compete with anyone, merely I've been to Copenhagen, Malmö, D.C., Amsterdam and greater The netherlands, New York, Key West, Fort Lauderdale and Miami, Chicago, and finally my hometown of Virginia Beach in the terminal six months.

Some of these I won't actually count as travel destinations, and I will see again, just I can't promise I'll be back to all of them.

I had this curious revelation on my terminal morning in Copenhagen. Information technology was my commencement trip abroad, something I had dreamed nearly since center school, and I hoped to accept many more than adventures abroad. Still, my journey'due south closing was bittersweet.

In that millennial way, I sabbatum on a bench in Nyhavn watching the sunrise (actually, it was gray then at that place was no sun to see, and so I moved on to the Picayune Mermaid) and was pondering what Instagram to post to commemorate my trip'south ending. There were a lot of emotions to encapsulate in a explanation (I am judging myself; you tin, besides) - glee, nostalgia, adrenaline, spirit. But there was 1 thing I admittedly did non want to declare: I would be dorsum.

Because I wouldn't. Or at least I couldn't promise I would be.

I did beloved Copenhagen. At that place are not many ameliorate European cities to steal your international travel virginity. Only would I return?

Maybe.

This sentiment has only grown stronger with my other trips. I bask places, I might even feel myself touching some function of my soul or the cosmos I haven't accessed before, merely I won't hope to return.

I am not and then grandiose as to take a life goal of visiting every country before I die. I have a lot of places I want to see, merely at that place is no listing I'm keeping or stamps I'm collecting. I do want to see Switzerland, South Africa, and the Mediterranean desperately (in that twenty-something, impatient way, to be honest). But I live my life for experiences. Only stepping across a edge is not a check mark. There are multiple cities and regions to see, to feel, to taste. You don't spend a mean solar day with someone and say yous know them. You besides don't stand on soil and say yous've experienced it.

I'm getting waylaid. I have no trouble with people who practice take such a checklist. In fact, both they and I accept the same trouble: life is finite. There will come a day when information technology all ends. Or we are inhibited. You can't expect to traverse the Congo holding a pikestaff.

My friend and I discussed this on our last night in the Florida Keys, basking in a tidal pool in Bahia Honda and then chasing the stars in our rented sedan in darkness. There is something magical in Florida humidity. You sweat the moment you lot go out your Air-conditioning'd hotel room, only the estrus is exhilarant. Perhaps it'due south the vacation days, maybe it's the palm trees. Only everything seems better: The h2o's clearer, The skies whiter, the sunsets more golden, and the clouds grander.

Both my friend and I grew up on family vacations that nosotros revisited every summertime. An annual routine was congenital. My family shopped at the aforementioned Piggly Wiggly, hiked the same trails, spent every Wednesday of that 1 week a year at the state park lake, and at that place is relaxation in all that. It is Americana.

But mayhap it's because we've reached our mid-twenties. The sun has given us some wrinkles. Nosotros have our own incomes. (Exercise I have an income?)

She and I agreed for our future endeavors, as much we loved this place, we wouldn't come here. Nosotros won't rule it out, but the next time I sit in a tidal pool, let it be the Caribbean area, or the next time I stargaze, pray it be on an African Savannah.

Y'all fall in love with a place. Y'all memorize its roads and skies for a week. You Instagram your happiness and revisit it in a couple Thursdays. Simply we don't have fourth dimension to actually come dorsum.

At that place are so many places to see and experience. If I was to commit to each one I brutal for in a day, to say I would come dorsum, I would accept no time for my time to come experiences. It is fine to relive some moments, just I can't promise to relive them all. Perhaps I will be dorsum in Copenhagen one day or see the canals of Delft again, but if I don't, and then I volition accept seen another sunrise (maybe this one with a sun) or another canal elsewhere. And that makes me just equally content.