Kamanya said:Post trip...
A week or so ago, my wife says to me whilst chatting, “you’re funnier since you got back”.
Pardon?
“Yes, you’re funnier, happier I suppose” and then carried on about other stuff.
It got me to thinking;
I had never realised how important trips are for me. It is more than just getting on and going somewhere, taking pictures along the way and getting home. I like to fully soak in the experience, do some reflecting and sort out stuff. I need to feel I have accomplished something, been inspired, had a full range of emotions from good to the not so good, Hell, had a mini life I suppose. Maybe even, a validation. I suppose another way of looking at it is that any trip has potential to be an experience; the challenge is, was I up to it. Was I up to meeting the potential of what the trip has to offer?
If this is a goal of a trip, how would one know if the potential had been achieved? Sure, getting to aimed for destinations are one way – got the photo, left the tyre mark. But I think my wife was onto something; Did the trip leave some of itself in me?
Although I had never thought of it, a better test of a trip is, if once I’d done it, would people around me notice something different. Then, surely it is tangible feedback about the trip, other than just the photo’s, receipts and scars?
I loved this trip, and if a sign that it had left its tyre mark on me was that I was funnier and happier then I was very fortunate. Maybe that’s how trips take pictures of us as we pass? I wonder if trips were living beings, what would they say about us in their forums?
My wife tolerates my trips, they are purely me exercises. Her type of trip doesn’t involve getting dirty or inconvenienced. It has heated floors and hairdryers, service with a smile, sunshine and beaches, books and shops. But, if she got to reap some benefit from mine too, then I might be sent packing more often.
Something to think about, no?
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