The Trip That Wasn’t

Very few people actually knew about this, but I had a plan.  A grand plan I was dreaming of and preparing for the past several years.  This upcoming January 2021 I was going to quit my corporate job to volunteer and travel abroad for 6-9 months, possibly longer depending how things went.  I had already found the organization I was going to volunteer through and had designed a tentative itinerary.  Amongst other stops I was going to work with small businesses in South Africa, assist nonprofits in Cambodia, and work at a women’s collective in Tanzania.  This trip kept me motivated through years of corporate burnout and exhaustion.  As I rarely just throw caution to the wind and do something, but rather take calculated risks, it had been a long time coming.  I was saving aggressively to pay off all my debts and stash a nest egg to fund this.  I had been networking in the nonprofit arena for my exit strategy once I wanted to come back to the US and work at a nonprofit in LA (which- fast forward, I now do).  And perhaps the most challenging of all, I had the conversations with my partner about how much this journey meant to me and how our relationship was going to work with me on the other side of the world.

Then COVID happened.  And it’s happening, and still will be happening for a while.  It’s hard to properly articulate how depressed and devastated I have been about this because quite frankly, I think I’m still in denial.  Part of me is clinging to the hope that I’ll wake up and this will all be a bad dream.  I’ll magically arise one morning and instead of seeing endless apocalyptic headlines, I’ll be on my way to REI to buy a travel backpack.  It’s taken me 5 months to write this blog post because when I think too much about how I should be preparing for my trip of a lifetime, I get too sad.  I’ve been sitting in a void of reality, where every day kind of does feel like a simulation.

And what the judgmental corners of my psyche initially didn’t want me to accept is that these lost plans can be soul-crushing.  I am able to acknowledge, as I have, that my current situation could be a lot worse, while also struggling to show up each day thankful for what I do have.  The same goes for you.  You can grieve for those less fortunate than you during this pandemic and also grieve over your lost trip, concert, or college football season.  Both things can be true.  It says nothing about your goodness as a person or your character, but simply speaks to your humanity.

So there it is, the “trip that wasn’t” has been unveiled.  I know someday I will get my big adventure, but right now it honestly feels too far off to imagine so ending on an overly positive note feels insincere.  As I’m sure many of you are doing right now, I’m just clinging to the small victories I can get.  Stay strong everyone.