Im Only Now Realizing How Much My Travel Bug Was Influenced By My Parents.

I’m only now realizing how much my travel bug was influenced by my parents.

I did a good amount of moving as a kid. About every four years, we would move across the state for some reason or another, usually of my dad’s necessity. I didn’t mind too much; I preferred to stay in my room, and as long as said room had a Gamecube in it, I’d be okay.

We never knew where we were moving to until maybe a month or two before the fact. Even when we did move, we weren’t sure how long we would stay. The last few months were very stressful, as we had no idea what to do or where to go - that is, until God revealed where we’d be going.

One of the options we would kick around in these times was the idea of living in an RV. We could just drive around the country wherever, stay for a week or two, then drive somewhere else. This was always our favorite idea! Even though what we ended up doing was more stable in the long run, on some level I was always disappointed that we never did this. Just traveling around and meeting people and seeing things sounds like so much fun!

In fact, that thought has come with me to my college life: After I get a degree, I can’t imagine myself staying in any one place. I’d love the freedom to travel around and visit my internet friends and my high school friends (these groups are strangely overlapping recently). I’d love to see new places and try new things. I’d love to journey out far away from “home,” sleep somewhere new, and do it all over again in the morning. Maybe not in a RV, but the idea still applies.

Right now I can’t imagine myself staying in one place for very long without going crazy. Maybe that’ll change one day. But right now I’m exploring ways to keep the traveling option open.

It’s just too bad there’s not more jobs that can accommodate such a lifestyle. Maybe something Internet-based?

Stress

Imagine for a moment that you're a shark.

Legends say that a shark will stop breathing if it stops moving. (That's not entirely true, but let's assume it is for illustration's sake.) You, the shark, are heading toward another location, perhaps a reef, to find food.

Now, imagine that the water around you starts to become thicker - more viscous. It becomes harder to swim, and in turn harder to breathe - which itself also makes it harder to swim. Each in turn compounds the other until you have to fight to swim each and every inch. All you can think of is that you need to reach your destination; it's right there, just keep going...! But your pace has slowed to a crawl.

That, to me, is stress. I start to freeze up whenever people put pressure on me. I can't think straight; fear takes me over, and I can only think of the consequences of failure. If I can't think, I can't formulate a plan - and I can't succeed, resulting in more stress. It's the worst kind of downward spiral.

But, going back to the shark, there's a little more to it. Let's say the water returns to its normal state. The shark won't automatically speed up and keep going. It has to recover first, to gradually pick up the energy and drive to move again. Soon it is going at full speed once more - but not immediately.

Even when the source of stress goes away, for me, the internal pressure has not. The relief hasn't set in. I'm still irritated, short-tempered, or burdened until I've had time to be alone or otherwise recover. I don't know why, but I've had limited success explaining this to people I know; I'm under the impression that it's not a common problem.

For some people, working under stress gives them more energy and motivation. I guess I'm just not built like that.

friends: *discussing music*

me: I've never heard of half this stuff, so I shouldn't say anything... besides, they probably aren't interested in what I listen to anyway

friends: So what kind of music do you like?

me: I'M GLAD YOU ASKED *produces phone and auxiliary cord from pocket*

The "best" compliment I've ever received

There's a reason I put "best" in quotes.

At my high school there was a small lounge area next to the cafeteria. It was a popular spot for studying and socializing - that is, when it wasn't closed for repairs after someone ransacked it, which was quite often. In fact, I think it's closed permanently now because of that...

~initializing un-sidetrack~ ANYWAY

A couple of my friends and I were hanging around there, taking a break between classes one day, when two girls came in. I never got to know them particularly well while I attended the school, but I do remember that they were of the spontaneous type. That was particularly apparent here, when they somehow got on the subject of hair... and started sniffing people's hair.

I REALLY don't know why they started doing this. But they went around to each person in the room and smelled their hair, proclaiming what it smelled like. For most, it was the smell of whatever shampoo they had used that morning; for at least one, it smelled a little dirty. This of course creeped my friends and me out, so I pretended not to notice.

I was the last to have my hair sniffed. One of the girls ran up, her friend lagging behind a bit, and stuck her face in my hair. I tensed a little.

"...clean," she said. "It's just clean."

Her friend came up behind, wondering what she meant by that. But she verified it too. "Yeah, just clean. That's weird."

I didn't have anything to say. I just sat there, partially dazed from the shock of "what the heck just happened," but mostly surprised by the outcome. Because what they didn't know is that I hadn't showered for a week.

And that's the anticlimactic story of the "best" compliment I've ever gotten.

That feel when

You hold the door open for someone

And five more people show up behind him

People keep streaming in and out of the door you’re holding

It’s been a couple of minutes that you’ve been standing there while people come and go

Finally there’s an opportunity to close the door

And you take it, because you’ve been standing there forever

But you look back just as the door closes

And someone slams into it at the last second, carrying a heavy basket

By now you’ve walked away, so it’s too late to have helped

Maybe I’m just too helpful?

The simultaneous "yes"

I didn't participate in a lot of events at my gifted school, mostly because they involved being "social," or "leaving" my room. I remember the dances were the most fun to stay back in the dorms for, because everyone was gone and that meant WAY better internet.

There was, however, one event I always loved to participate in: the Gold Rush, known one year as the Gem Hunt. It was organized annually (or occasionally semi-annually) by a student life advisor named Jim. He was an outdoors-y kind of person, and this was his attempt at getting us students unfused from our keyboards and into the sunshine.

He went out and hid colored rocks around the campus for the students to find. These could be traded for fancy prizes like snacks and stuff. There were a few bigger rocks that were worth a lot more, but they were much more deviously hidden; I remember one up in the nook of a tree, hidden by the leaves. But the best prize was the giant rock, which was always the central focus of the hunt - whoever found it would be granted anything - within reason, of course, which usually meant either worth ~$15, or some sort of service like "a private fire in the back for me and my significant other." In sum, it was kind of like a high-stakes Easter egg hunt.

Our campus was located on top of a college campus, and there were four major routes: two paths from each dorm to the school building, a path between the two dorms, and a path out by the lake. Each time the hunt was on, I went up and down those about ten times each looking for the rocks. Of course, I was always most interested in the big rock, because I could feasibly get a game with it.

The year of the gem hunt (the last one before I went to college), I had made my routes up and down the dorm paths, but hadn't gone out to the lake yet, so I invited one of my closest friends, Eric, to come with me. We agreed that if we found it, we'd split the prize.

The lake path is the longest by far - about half a mile. It's popular with the college students as an exercise path, both for the length and the scenic route. We started at one end and combed the whole path, finding bunches of little rocks that most others had missed. We even found some in pieces of trash, like old chip bags. But there were no large rocks, and the number of small rocks seemed to be fewer towards the end of the path. Moreover, we didn't find the largest rock.

So I convinced Eric to look with me another couple of times. All we found was more trash. I was certain it was somewhere near the lake, as I had already scoured the other paths without success. Finally, after maybe the fifth pass (without finding any more rocks), I conceded and we went back. To give an idea of the time, we started at 3PM and didn't go back until 6.

After eating dinner (and convincing ourselves someone else found it), we went to talk to Jim. I turned in my haul for some snacks and casually mentioned the large rock.

"Yeah, no one found it this time," he said. "I'm pretty proud of where I hid it." "Really?" Eric chimed in. "Can you tell us?" "It's late enough that no one's going to find it, so I suppose... Do you guys remember seeing a crushed styrofoam cup?"

What followed could have come straight out of a movie. Eric and I both turned to each other with shocked realization, then turned back and, with perfect timing, deadpanned:

"Yes."

Because out of all the litter lining the lake, there was only one small styrofoam cup, located near the beginning of the path at the lake's edge. And we had both ruled it out, because the large rock definitely couldn't fit. How could that possibly have worked out?

"There's a small gold rock in there," he explained. "I tied some fishing line to it. On the other end is a plastic bag with the big rock in it. I dropped that into the lake itself. So when someone found the small rock, they would find the large rock."

We all got a good laugh out of it. Although I was mostly laughing at the mind-reading Eric and I did. Secretly, I was screaming at Jim.