There’s a downside to every decision we make in life. The choice to be a rootless traveler is no exception. Here are some of the major drawbacks and possible solutions to the biggest I’ve encountered.
Your Life Résumé Looks…Suspicious
If life read like a résumé mine would look like a scattershot mash-up of faces, places and living spaces. And that’s just my childhood years. If you worry that an employer won’t hire you if you take a year off to travel, think again. More employers are looking for new hires that have a few notches on their travel belts.
And who cares about a few holes in your past? If you do, fill them up with your dynamic personality, winning smile and open-mindedness. Your life isn’t a résumé and if you think you can be summed up in two pages, travel may not be right for you.
You Will Lose Touch With Family & Friends
This is indisputable. People will graduate and get married in your absence. They will start families. They will die. They will have some fun times and traumatic ones in your absence.
I have no simple solution to this problem, except for all the ways I’ve learned to stay in touch. Skype, blogs and twitter help. So does understanding impermanence and the fact that there is change in each moment. Your obligation as a traveler is to witness what’s happening in the world around you, even if you can’t be physically present on some occasions. The best way to honor those back home is to stay present wherever you happen to be in any moment.
Moving House. Again.
This is probably the hardest to come to grips with. No matter how many times I change residences, each time I do it comes with a big dollop of sorrow and clinging. I know that attachment is a part of life, but moving to a new house or new country tests the limits of my ability to “let go.”
This is actually the “dark side” to which I refer in the title. The physical act of picking up and moving again. Getting rid of the things you don’t need. Breaking them up into little piles (I have an entire system devised to do just this) that say “Keep,” “Return to Friend,” “Sell,” and “Donate.” Deciding what goes where. Cutting the fat. Keep cutting the fat.
And above all, saying good-bye. When I left Japan at the end of 2006 I intended to return a month later. That didn’t happen. I left without saying the Proper Good-bye which, in Japan, can be taken as an insult. I went back in February 2007 to do it proper, but it wasn’t the same. People forget about you and that can really hurt the ego if you let it. Each time I move I die a little. I die, but there is re-birth when I arrive in the next city or country and I realize it was “worth it.” This is one reason I advocate travel when you’re young. Your body and mind are flexible and can stand the moves. As you age, especially if you didn’t travel during your youth, the furthest you may want to go is a cruise to the Bahamas and back. Nothing wrong with that, just consider going further now, if it’s a dream of yours.
With each transition comes and opportunity to grow. And that’s why I travel, anyway. Sometimes pain is necessary for that growth to occur.
3 comments ↓
Very good insight Gwen. In your case, it sure is tough to let go and move on. Vacation is definitely different than having lived somewhere for any extended time.
Traveling sure builds character though.
Hey Gwen:) Thanks for this post. In reading it, I thought of a book you might like called “Refuse to Choose”. The author talks about the “scanner personality” type - people who have a lot of interests and don’t like to choose only one; they can’t. Lion and I are very much scanners, although different subtypes of it (she gives about 10 or so subtypes). Anyways, the whole resume thing reminded me of it:) Even though I haven’t traveled much, my resume is getting to be all over the map:P
Let me know if you pick it up, and if you find it helpful. I read it last week and it’s been really helpful and validating.
-ryan
This is what I was thinking about the next move, the next country. It will happen when the time it right, but the actual moving and uprooting hurts so much.
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