I was contemplating all the things I contemplate when I masturbate. The places I’ve been, the things I’ve done, a couple of the people I’ve done- because they’re only a couple that really turn up in the darkness of my solitude- and amongst all of those thoughts 16-year-old me came roaring through and mad-as-hell.
Suddenly, we were back together on a train in 1991 and heading into Athens, Greece. She looked at me and said, “What the fuck happened to you? We were going to see the world, learn languages, fly planes, embed into war zones. TELL THE STORIES. Where you are today … that is not US, but I am stuck with YOU. I did not sign-up for the bullshit life your decisions have made for us, but there I am- sitting with you in a fucking office- day after day- feeling blood pressure and cortisol spike.”
“I get it. I don’t want to be there either, but Arwen is my heart and I can’t live all those dreams things until she’s launched.”
“I love her too, she’s my kid too and she wants the adventurous life you HAD, but better. SHE said it. So why did you fuck it up? Why did you stop being free and living your adventure?”
“I fell in love a man who had potential.”
“Was it really love,” it wasn’t a question, she knew the answer.
“We know now it wasn’t … it was hope, but it felt like what I thought love should feel like. I fell into the arms of what-if and potential felt safe.”
“You/me/us. We were the ones with potential. We always made our-self safe. You let us down.”
“I am fully fucking aware, but I love my kid and WE will get to launch soon too. The dreams never stopped, they just got delayed.”
It was enough to calm the 16-year-old that still sits within my heart. Her dreams will come true.
I have been a solo traveler since before I was of legal age. In the fall of my 14th year, I traveled to NYC and stayed in a women’s boarding house, The Allerton House, at 57th & Lexington and explored the City on my own for a week. The following spring, I visited London & Venice, respectively staying in London with a guy we’d met on a family weekend in Denver and in Venice I stayed with a woman I met while in NYC. I took the trains and read maps and discovered museums and street performers and walked around the canals as I pleased. Next, at 15 I hit up Seattle via a Greyhound bus and stayed with a family friend, who I don’t think actually expected me to show up. By 16, I was back in Europe with a backpack and Eurail Pass. Paris, Nice, Rome, Athens, Mykonos and then home. Between all this, at some point I got a driver’s license, but my mom was letting me drive solo well before I had the license, or permit. I never finished high school, instead opting for my GED at 17 and community college. Next, was a year at the University of Wyoming and then the United States Navy for four years. During the Navy, I was stationed stateside because, as it turns out, the “travel the world” part of enlistment is not guaranteed. However, during my service, I managed to drive across large swaths of the country with fellow sailors. Post military, I was back to primarily solo traveling. In those years, I made it to Belize and Guatemala and got back to Europe- seeing the Czech Republic, a bit of Germany, and the northwest coastal area of Italy.
Sunset on our first night in Waves, NC. One week into a three week road trip, Spring 2021.
Everything before 17 might seem completely insane and as a parent today, I agree. I would never let my now 16 year-old child be out in the world to the degree I was allowed, but today’s world is very different than it was in the early 90s. However, now or then, I would still agree with the sentiment, “What were her parents thinking?” The answer is there wasn’t a they and my mom was barely surviving. My dad died without warning when I was not quite 8 and my sister was 6, leaving my mom with an industrial photography business and alcoholic tendencies. She went into a tailspin with the unexpected role of solo-parenting and I don’t think she ever truly recovered. She was supposed to want kids, but she did not have a strong parental model and I don’t think her mothering instinct was a natural tendency. When I showed a strong independent streak, she was thrilled and encouraged me to do my thing.
With the tools she had, she did as good as she could for us, but there was limited oversight and I learned to hustle at an early age. I was pleased to be responsible and glad to be able to help her with anything I could including learning to pay bills, and listening to her stories of boyfriends and breakups. My young brain figured if she was happy she wouldn’t leave like our dad had left. To be clear, I logically knew he had died, but no one in my family talked about death or those who died. He was there and then gone. We just kept moving forward. To me he had left us to fend for ourselves so that’s what I would do as well as I possibly could figure out each day. Now there is a word for the reality I grew up in- parentification, but at the time it was just, “being such a great helper.” Regardless of labels, my mom saw me a capable young adult so that’s how I ended up traveling at 14. I distinctly recall her saying, “Well, if you figured out all the travel plans and lodging, you must be able to manage the trip.”
To this day, being free to roam through the world is where I feel most myself. For me, the unknown outcomes are far outweighed by the freedom of moment-to-moment independent choice making. My experience has been that the independence of solo traveling is the best possible outcome for life. Now that my daughter is preparing to soon launch into the world, I am looking forward to returning to a life of being more on the road- exploring and teaching, than in a locked location. It always astonished when people, especially women, haven’t discovered this freedom. I look forward to sharing this freedom, to teaching and guiding women to find a comfortable thrill in traveling solo, and close to solo, throughout this world.
Spread Your Dreams 