If I’m absolutely honest with you, this post took too many tears to write. Still, I think it needs to be said. If for no other reason than for me to lighten the load I carry, since I can no longer share it with the ones I want to. I will try to do it justice from my personal standpoint, but I don’t think I will be able to word it as eloquently as Zhara Michelle York over at littlewildexperiences.wordpress.com. Her post about the topic of social connections you make during solo travels has stirred a part of me that needed to take action. It is a topic I’ve struggled with heavily in recent weeks after coming back from another bit solo trip and her post captured so well the feelings I was holding on to. Heavy feelings to carry.
It is time to find the closure I wasn’t given.
When I tell people I solo-travel, I hear a lot of ‘I don’t know how you do it, I couldn’t possibly do it alone. ‘ Well, that’s the thing, though, isn’t it – you might start off your journey on your own, but it doesn’t stay that way throughout it. You meet people in your accommodation, at events you attend, in the smoking area, at a bar, or at a restaurant. There are people everywhere and, essentially, it is you who decides how truly ‘solo’ you want to be.
For me, the connections I know I want to explore are instantaneous. To the point where the phrase ‘When you know – you know‘ becomes true. The depth that these connections come at hits you at the core, and you find yourself experiencing the highest of highs.
Deep, belly-aching laughs, dancing, funny situations, unforgettable conversations, the life-changing travel adventures that you can only share together, because that’s who you experienced them with. Personal stories you share with each other, ones you’ve never shared with anyone else, ones you never might share again.
Whether you realise it or not, that person who was a stranger 5 minutes ago, now holds your deepest secrets, and you theirs. You’re intertwined, and the mutuality of it is unmistakable. But it is not always enough.
Mel Robbins states that connections rely on 3 things:
- Proximity
- Timing
- Energy
Making friends as a solo traveller usually provides all three very easily. Physical closeness and time to enjoy shared experiences, while being at similar stages in your lives. Away from the mundanity of the everyday, the moments swallow you whole. And you get caught up in it – how could you not? This is exciting. And it is never going to end. Why would it if it’s perfect. Right?
You start planning – how to stay in touch, how often you’ll call, where you’ll meet up. So when you hop on that flight back, you’re not really saying goodbye. You’re not closing that book because you are full of hope that the next chapter is just around the corner. Ready for it to continue, you turn the page.
And you find it blank.
What began as such a promise turns to nothing, and you come back to an emptiness you’ve never experienced before. As if nothing had ever happened. As if it were just a fever dream.
From the highest high comes the lowest low.
You reach out, and responses are vague. Or they don’t come through at all. There’s no follow-up. And it hurts. It hurts so much to admit that certain people are only temporary. And I don’t know how to deal with your sudden absence. And I don’t know how we went through all that we did just to be strangers again.
Where do I put this feeling? That there should have been more. That there could have been more to us.
I have such a big heart, and while it loves big, the hurt is just as large. Whatever I do, I cannot stop falling in some kind of love with the people my heart chooses. It doesn’t choose often, but when it does… You have me. For better or for worse, you have me.
Until the moment you show me that I do not have you.
And I do, I do always hold on to this hope, that this time… This time, they’ll stay. This time, they will not be temporary. But people leave your life just as quickly as they entered it, and you have to learn to let go. Or suffer from the confusion of comparing how you met and what you had versus where you are now.
You go back home, back to work, to paying bills, to taking out trash. The physical proximity is gone, and energy shifts as you get out of the travel mode. You realise that others, sometimes you too, are not willing to step up, to put in conscious efforts to maintain and nourish these connections. And so they scatter. And all you’re left with is the loud silence that follows.
Not all connections are like that. I’ve made friends in Asia that I’m going over to visit next week. I’m still in touch with people I met in Alaska. But most of them, usually the ones I care about the most, are now a sore talking point. Days gone by, crying. A stranger in a picture I quickly skip past. A name I don’t want to hear.
They’ve brought me many smiles but caused me just as many tears.
And I suppose you have to decide whether it was worth it. I actually don’t know the answer yet. Hindsight is 20/20.
Someone can be a good person, but not a good person for you.
Regardless of how many times I try and let go, it is still a lesson I’m trying to master. I cared, that’s all I know for sure. People who want to stay in your life will do so, though, and those are the ones we should focus on.
It is vital to acknowledge that some people were only meant to be a sentence, a paragraph, maybe even a brief chapter or two, in your life’s story. Not everyone is meant to make it to the epilogue.
So enjoy the moments while they last. These connections… Even if they meant to end, they were good at the time.
Yea…They were good.
The Roaming Wolf 
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