I’m sad and I don’t want to work anymore

Last week with V

Well, to start with, I’m not really sad, just feel the skies darkening as the day V and I split approaches. We’ve had the first two months of our travels together, as planned. The hope is to have another 2+ in July and August, though that is still tbd. Regardless of what happens then, traveling together these last two months has been better than I could have imagined in about every way possible, and now that we’re about a week away from her departure, we’re both starting to get hit with these waves of “oh shit, we’re not gonna see each other for three and a half months”. Waking up is generally the worst, but we find ourselves clinging to the extra special moments throughout the day, lingering in silence as we both appreciate how lucky we are to travel together like we have and also dread that it’s coming to an end. Or at least I am; V’s probably looking forward to a few months off from my shenanigans!

I have been looking forward to the cycling part of the trip for such a long time, I kinda figured that excitement would fill the hole left by V’s departure, or at least cover it up. But no, I feel it all, both ends of the spectrum. Which, I suppose, is great…if I wasn’t torn up about parting ways it’d be a bad sign for our relationship! Anyway, we’ll enjoy these last days together, ugly cry when we separate, and then be even more appreciative of whatever we get to do together this summer.

Glad not to have to work

As far as work is concerned, I thankfully hardly think about it at all. Though the sabbatical wasn’t so much to get away from work as it was generally to just have an adventure, it’s absolutely fucking fantastic not to work, and at this point in time, it’s almost unfathomable to me to go back to a 9-5 job. Which is totally okay, because I don’t have to for another eight months. Haha, feels so good to write that!

Every once in a while my mind drifts back to my colleagues, but almost always only about them and how they’re doing, and virtually never about the work. I’m one of 20,000 clever employees at one of roughly 333 million companies worldwide which combine to employ over 3 billion people. My work contribution is infinitesimally small, even if, as the protagonist of my own story, it seems much more important. In my case though, having no delusions of grandeur means I have also been able to set work aside quite quickly, and as said before, that’s pretty damn nice. I don’t think “hmm, I wonder how that project is getting on,” I think “ooh, that insect looks like it has a mustache.” Or “oh shit, I waited far too long to confirm with the shop and my plan to buy a bike in Patagonia just fell through a week before I fly there and I don’t have a great plan B only a lot of plan C’s what the hell am I gonna do.”

Other random reflections

…to address comments that I frequently got before my trip. First, two months has gone by in the blink of an eye. An unexpected number of people said they couldn’t imagine traveling for more than a couple of months; they’d get bored or they’d be itching to get back to reality and work. To the surprise of probably no one, I am neither of those things, not even in the same area code, particularly with work. Obviously. Second, I don’t actually mind living out of a suitcase, or in this case, a backpack. Is it awesome? No. Is it such a minor inconvenience that we’ve never actually consciously thought about it? Yes. Small price to pay to be able to do what we’re doing. Third, I really enjoy reading. I’ve read seven books since we departed, and it probably would have been more if not for a couple monster books and so much time traveling with friends and socializing in the evenings, rather than reading. And fourth, I’m not exhausted and I don’t feel the need to slow down. Yes, it would be nice to have four or five days in a single place where we do just one thing a day, but we’ve been able to squeeze a ton of benefit out of few isolated days of repose we’ve had, so we keep going. Onwards!