It’s a pretty melodramatic title, I know. But I was being pretty melodramatic over the last few days. I’m in Greece right now, a trip I booked several weeks ago. I’ve been really looking forward to the trip. But, in the couple of days before leaving, I started obsessing over this being the first time I would be traveling in a foreign country by myself. Pause, think about that . . . yes, I eventually realized how stupid that was given the fact that I LIVE in a foreign country by myself. And, this isn’t even the first time I’ve done that! I am living and working in England, dealing with Ofsted and rude, presumptuous children. I lived and worked in Mexico, dealing with assassinations of police chiefs, sixteen-year-olds shooting up nightclubs, and narcos leaving severed heads on the front steps of City Hall in Acapulco (and rolling them onto the floor of a nightclub in Chihuahua). And I’m worried about Greece?
It’s funny because I would not have called myself an adventurous person. I tend to think of myself as fairly conservative, but if I were to objectively assess my life, I have taken a lot of risks and done a lot of adventurous things. I mean, I’m not talking skydiving types of risks (no way on God’s Green Earth), or Behind Enemy Lines types of risks, but I’ve lived abroad three times (I was a Foreign Service Officer for Pete’s sake!), and I’ve lived in Boston and Washington. I bought a piece of Manhattan real estate on my own (a strange and daring adventure all on its own). I’ve sent my work out to publishers and TV producers, and handled the subsequent rejection (and occasional minor success). I’ve chatted with Oscar-winning directors and actors because I figured I had nothing to lose (thanks Danny Boyle, et al!). And all this is from the girl who, at seventeen, was too scared to go from NY to Boston for college (made it there eventually for grad school!)
So, what turned the 17-year-old girl afraid to leave home into the nearly 37-year-old citizen of the world? So many things. Obviously as I grew older, I grew more confident (in some things, anyway!). And, I grew stronger. Mom and Dad were a huge part of that. They never pushed, but they always encouraged. When I couldn’t go to Boston, they made sure I didn’t need to. When I wanted to go to Oxford, and was, truly, terrified at the thought of being so far away, they supported me and left the ultimate decision to me. I remember people saying, “The girl who couldn’t go to Boston is going to England?” And I told them, “I can’t get Oxford in New York.” That was a turning point for me. I realized that, if I really wanted something, I had to take a risk and, if I didn’t take that risk, I would wonder “What if?” for the rest of my life. So I took the risk. It wasn’t easy. I was lonely, I never quite fit in with my peer group (especially when I was living with a bunch of pot-heads), and we spent a fortune on phone calls home. But it was an experience I still value today. And, it conquered that last fear of being away from home. Everything else was (relatively) easy after that.
So then, why was I scared to travel to Greece alone? Well, on one of my soul-searching walks along the Thames (very useful walks, actually, more on them another time), it finally hit me. It had nothing to do with fear of being in another country on my own – that was simple displacement. No, what this anxiety was about was something very, very different. This is the first time I have taken a trip like this without Mommy. This is something we would have done together. In fact, there were two separate occasions on which we were supposed to come to Greece, but plans fell through. A little over a year ago, if I were to have been planning this trip it would have, without question, been with her. And now, it’s on my own. The sense of loss is palpable. I should be doing this with her. Today, we should have been gazing from the hills of Delphi and marveling at what it must have been like in all it’s glory, envisioning being one of the faithful coming to the oracle for a prediction (btw, I didn’t realize the oracle was the place, not the person). We would have drunk in the atmosphere and reveled in the fact that we were treading the same ground as the Ancient Greeks thousands of years ago. Instead, I was doing that, but alone.
That’s the thing, though, isn’t it? That’s what this year+ has been about – figuring out who I am without my parents, and particularly without my best friend. They are still an incredible presence in my life, but it’s times like this when I really feel the fact that their presence is within me now, not beside me. I’m grateful for having that strong sense of them being with me, but sometimes, I really just want to talk to them like I used to. And to hug them. But, as cliché as it sounds, Life goes on. And, though I would not have thought it possible last year, life is good. School kinda sucks, but life is good! And, unbelievably, it keeps moving forward. And that’s all because the girl who couldn’t go to Boston went to England (and Greece!)
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