I try to keep this blog positive and upbeat, which isn’t typically hard to do – I mean, we are traveling to exciting places and seeing exotic sights – how could that not be fun? It’s not a perfect life, though, in fact being “on the road” comes with its own special set of challenges and obstacles. Missed flights, sold out trains, no wifi or cell signal for miles; there are a myriad of things that can go wrong. Most of the aforementioned are things that you’re prepared to encounter as a sort of trade-off for taking on this lifestyle, hazard of the job, but there are other difficulties you can’t account for. There are alterations to the way you can or can’t live your life and keeping touch and holding onto connections are just a few of those.
This may not be the cheeriest post, but it’s likely to be one of the most honest. For anyone that has been following the blog, first and foremost, I want to apologize for the lack of posts in the past few days. Rest assured, that rucksackledger.com is still operational and that, going forward, we will be more dedicated than ever to providing you regularly posted content that you will hopefully enjoy.
The reason for the brief hiatus is simple: I got dumped.
Surely, we have all, at some point, had to experience the emotional maelstrom that comes with breaking up with someone you love. It’s never easy or fun, regardless of the situation, but it feels even more heightened in emotion when you’re only in town for less than 24 hours and you’ve been looking forward to seeing someone for weeks while you’re travelling, only to finally see them and have them say they no longer want to be with you. There’s precious little time to mourn, because you have to get to sleep so you can be up in five hours to hop a train or a plane to the next location. You’ll have to schedule that ugly-crying fest for a time when you aren’t booking a hotel or editing photos or writing your next post.
And, in the aftermath, you realize that those little phone calls and texts every day, those were the small semblance of home you had left. Simply knowing that someone was back at home thinking of you and waiting to see you was enough to surmount the other tough parts and make it all worth while. Being loved and having a special person rooting for and pining for you gives you a kind of confidence and determination. Then, suddenly, you have to make it through each day and each challenge on your own self-will and – perhaps the biggest change – you realize that your home is just the contents of your backpack. You have to create a home wherever you go, as much as you can, and also accept that part of that trade-off you’ve made is foregoing a traditional life and home for a once-in-a-lifetime adventure.
You lose things when you travel, no matter how tight your packing-game may be or how many times you’ve triple-checked the hotel room. I’ve lost a lot of things throughout this journey. I lost a pair of sunglasses in Las Cruces, and a charger somewhere in Texas. I left a t-shirt in Alabama, and, I lost my heart in Seattle.