Reigniting My Love and Passion for Travel
How do you lose a love, a passion? Did it burn so bright the only option left was to burn out? Or maybe it crashed & and burned, maybe even turned sour?
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How can anyone possibly forget about one of their greatest loves & passions?
Turns out passion can fizzle out, simply from the weight of time & stress until it’s simply… well, forgotten. At least, that’s what happened to me.
I got so comfortable in my routine & putting out little problem fires that popped up. Eventually, I forgot to nurture the fire inside me.
Chances are high, it’s also happened to you, dear reader. It’s understandable and probably rather common, but that doesn’t mean it stings less.
I hadn’t even realized what I had forgotten until I was watching an unexpected vlog back in December 2021, where this couple went to a cute little Christmas-town type of place. I unexpectedly found myself feeling so heartbroken. Which wasn’t even the worst part! The worst was that for a day or so, I didn’t even know WHY I felt that way.
Let me be the first to tell you: that I generally have a good handle on what I feel, and most importantly, why I feel the way I do. I’m very self-aware (sometimes against my will).
It also wasn’t the first time I’ve watched travel-related videos, so to me, it came out of nowhere. Though in retrospect, I suppose the stars aligned just right. Or in this case, hormones + an unknown trigger + mindset + stress levels.
All of that reminded me, violently, that I used to dream about traveling for new & interesting experiences.
If it seems a little odd, that someone could forget something so important, well… It’s harder to explain what’s missing from a picture, instead of pointing out all the things wrong with it.
Plus, long-term goals are the first casualty when battling with short-term problems (at least in my experience). In the 10 years I’ve been in the US, my goals & priorities have changed multiple times.
But those goals & priorities changed in ways that, were reactions to current situations instead of actions toward my goals. It was a difference I almost didn’t notice until recently.
I kept slapping on band-aid solutions, without addressing the real problem.
My band-aid fixes & how it backfired on me
Because of course, it’s not like I didn’t do any traveling at all. I didn’t just go to school & home all the time. Mostly.
I’ve been to San Diego (frequently), Las Vegas (occasionally), Catalina Island, Big Sur, San Francisco, and Big Bear before my, well, meltdown. I stayed within the US because of some visa/paperwork mistakes I had made when I first came.
I was in the process of fixing that so I could travel in and out of the country more easily.
I also did have travel plans to go to Asia in April 2020, except… well, you know.
But eventually, not even the giant pile of band-aids I had slapped on the problem could hold off the bleeding.
The clarity hit like a tidal wave against a barrier made up of paper.
Rather than offering protection, the barrier I made caused more damage upon impact. The truth was that I was making choices that at best, weren’t taking me closer to my goals. At worst, they were taking me in the opposite direction of where I wanted to go.
I hadn’t realized it at the time, because even I forgot where I wanted my life to go.
Without realizing it, I had adapted to mainly planning my short-term goals. Meanwhile, I was allowing my long-term goals to fall to the wayside, with only a vague headline.
I got too caught up trying to figure out what I wanted to do at the moment until I could “get back on track” after COVID-19 impacted my previous long-term plans.
Except I’ve come to realize that there might never be a track for me to “get back to.” COVID-19 & other problems have reshaped the landscape so thoroughly it’s almost unrecognizable.
The plans and the path I laid out for myself back in 2019 were no longer applicable – I just didn’t realize it yet. I was waiting for things to get back to normal, but I’ve now come to realize that this is it.
While there might come a day when I’m not extremely afraid of being that jerk who managed to infect the vulnerable members of our family, that day isn’t coming any time soon. I also can’t (and I really shouldn’t) hold myself responsible for getting sick, especially if I took reasonable precautions.
Because putting my life on pause, and waiting for the old “normal” is no life at all. There’s a fine line between being cautious and letting fear dictate me, and shape the rest of my life.
I simply have to go out and learn the new layout of the land, and plot a course around the current obstacles, rather than allowing the obstacles to determine my destination.
My other problem was that I’d put so much time & resources into pursuing art. Since being an art was the only major I was interested in, I thought it was my passion. But to be honest, I haven’t felt that on a deep level, for a long time.
At the time, the most logical step was to make it my end goal, professionally speaking. Except none of the job descriptions I’ve seen or heard have ever truly felt like a perfect fit.
“Of course, not everyone pursues a career that’s an absolutely 100% perfect fit.”
It’s what I told myself when I tried to imagine my future as the head of some sort of undefinable art & design empire.
It was easier to imagine an imperfect career fit being an illustrator or graphic designer than to acknowledge that maybe art was just a means to an end.
Wait, what does being an art major or professional artist have anything to do with traveling?
Well, I thought back to when I used to imagine myself being part of the team that created Disney’s Frozen and Encanto. I realized the part that excited me the most was hearing about how they sent artists to experience life & culture in Canada, Norway, & Colombia.
I mean, sure, being the artist who designs the characters or the gorgeous landscapes is awesome…
But ultimately, it was the idea of being paid to travel & experience different cultures that got my heart fluttering, and my mind racing with excitement.
It took a while to get there but eventually, the individual realizations added up in my head over time, until I couldn’t un-see the facts that have been there all along.
The small truths were like breadcrumbs I didn’t even realize I was leaving for myself. My creativity is always going to be how I can best express my thoughts and emotions, but simply expressing who I am is not the best end goal.
Plus, passion alone isn’t sustainable.
Taking a step forward & relearning what I want out of my life
It’s not going to be an easy journey, to discard habits & ideas I’ve had about myself for the past 10 years. There are probably going to be days (or weeks, or months) where fear & uncertainty will nudge me back to well-trodden paths, away from forging my own.
After all, right now what I have is an idea & a strong feeling. But I have less of a detailed plan, and more unanswered questions than anything such as:
- How do I fund my travel goals?
- Is this even something I should try to monetize, or should I fund it with a traditional job? Do I focus on a blog, a YouTube channel, or both?
- Is this blog going to be a good sample of my writing style & skill to get hired, if I want to utilize my writing skills to fund my travels?
- Is this just another fleeting passion that will fizzle out as well, someday?
- Who even is my target audience?
Who knows? I certainly don’t. These are also just the tip of the iceberg…
What I do know is this:
My recent trip to Seattle has re-ignited an excitement for life, and the unexpected, that I hadn’t even realized I was missing. I’m also glad that we decided on traveling by plane, rather than doing a road trip or even the Coast Starlight Train by Amtrak.
There was just something about traveling through and to an extent, just existing in the airport that somehow appealed to me.
As someone who wants to be in control – of myself, and as much of my surroundings as possible – the idea of a chaotic airport, expected delays, and the sheer amount of people should be stressful. Instead, it had the opposite effect on me. I delighted in the idea of letting go and simply riding the literal & metaphorical air currents.
I was the leaf, letting the winds take me where it willed.
We had no specific plans or reservations we had to get to the day we traveled (deliberately). So even though our flight was delayed by 30 minutes, I was under no stress or pressure to do anything or be anywhere.
I felt like I had all the time in the world, to ride out delays and setbacks, like I was just traveling for the sake of traveling. This was true, to a certain extent – this trip to Washington was (mostly) for pleasure, after all.
I don’t know if I have enough words to describe how I felt, but I was literally vibrating with excitement at LAX, and trying hard not to show it.
Who knows, maybe if I was actually traveling for work I might find it more stressful. But somehow, I don’t think so: I love everything from researching activities, packing my bags, and the excitement of something new. Right now, I don’t even mind the inconvenience of unexpected delays & the chaos, though that might change later down the road.
I don’t necessarily love nor thrive on chaos, but something about the particular flavor of chaos that comes as part and parcel of traveling just appeals to me on a base level.
I hadn’t even realized it was something that resonated with me until now.
I haven’t traveled by plane for over 10 years. The first few times I had, I was too young to realize or even understand most of what was going on, and back in 2012, I was too anxious, uncertain, and honestly, somewhat depressed to feel anything else.
At the end of the day,
Honestly, I’m still not 100% sure how I can include this passion at this point in my life – all I know right now, at the moment of writing this is that I truly, absolutely want to make this happen.
I know there are a lot of obstacles right now, with rising costs being only one of them. This is the most uncharted my future has been, but it’s also the most excited I’ve ever been about the future.
I finally feel like I know where I want to go and what I want to do for the rest of my life. It’s just a matter of figuring out how to get to my destination, despite the obstacles.
So even though I don’t know yet how I do know the future looks vibrant & thriving.
