Is authenticity achievable while traveling?

Last night I was trying to fall asleep thinking about the usual three things I tend to think about before bed. 1) Whether or not my current situation could be a topic for the Oprah show. 2) Listing all the things I would say if I ever came across the person I hate the most. And 3) Where I'm going next, the people I'm going to meet, and the epic adventures I have encountered in the past.

But that's really beside the point. As far back as I can remember, my family and I have been moving around. I don't think we've ever lived in one place for more than four years maximum, and personally I've never lived anywhere longer than a year. I've changed apartments, houses, counties, every six months since I was 18 and moved away from "home".

While I have the drive to keep moving around, to keep traveling, to experience everything I can, sometimes I wonder just how much this 24-hour chaos is affecting me. Everyone always talks about their childhood best friends, or even their current best friends. I think I could name a "best" friend in every town I've ever lived in. But to say that I still keep in touch with all of them, or even half the people I've come across in my short lived life, would be a complete lie.

That's a little troubling for me. To me, the most important thing about life is the people we come in contact with, the lives we affect, and the people who affect ours. I am truly, genuinely interested in making authentic friendships and relationships. And to be honest, that has been really hard thus far. When you're constantly moving, traveling, and planning next trips it makes time and effort to get to know people rather difficult. For some. But not for me.

I sometimes wish everyone had the same desire. The simple desire to get to know another person, to affect and be affected. I know that acquaintances and small talk are unavoidable while living this life. But I'm constantly searching for something else, something a little more substantial.

And while I'm writing this I realize maybe it's not just the authentic relationships that I'm looking for. Maybe I'm looking for authentic experiences, to experience a new place, or a new life. I just know that for so long I was looking for these things, and in reality I wasn't being authentic to myself.

Confused yet? So am I. What I do know is this: if I meet you along the way, I promise that I will be genuinely interested in getting to know you, in what you're doing, and how you are. And I expect nothing more or nothing less in return. If you are a person, a country, or a book I read....I will be true to you. Because that's the way life should be.

I do not regret moving around all the time, or making my life a vagabond of sorts. Do I wish that I had a constant circle of friends and people I love around me? Sometimes. But I'm simply not satisfied with that kind of life.

"Do not think that love, in order to be genuine, has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired." -Mother Theresa

I also think it's amazing that at any given moment my life can be explained by a Led Zeppelin song. So cheers to rambling on, moving on, and traveling on. 

Verbal Backdoor Trots

I'm just going to put it out there that I actually put the word diarrhea into Thesaurus.com to see if I could get a more "appropriate" word if you will to follow the word verbal in my entries title. I just couldn't pass this one up because, backdoor trots? That's funny. I don't care who you are, that's good stuff.

Whenever I am preparing for a big trip, going somewhere abroad, or just a move across country I forget how undeniably annoying it is just getting ready to depart. When I first moved to Hawaii I was young and naive. Even though I was scared shitless, I entered into a program that basically held my hand every step of the way, and then I had my mom doing more or less everything else for me. She even flew out to Oahu with me for the first week, made sure I got settled into the dorms alright, ate in the dining hall with me to inspect the food, and cried endlessly when I finally said, "Okay mom...you can go now".

When I went to Spain I first experienced the pain in the ass process of going to another country for an extended period of time, and all the bullshit that comes along with getting a Visa. I mean they actually expected me to FLY to Cali to physically get my Visa. News Flash Spanish Embassy, a flight to Cali from Hawaii isn't just a hop-skip-and-a-jump over the Pacific Ocean. It's damn expensive and now they don't even feed you that rubbery chicken parmesan that I so look forward to mid-flight.

The rest of times I've been out of the country were for backpacking trips or vacations. From Bangkok to Munich all I had to do was make sure I had my passport in hand, and try to spend some serious intimate time with my backpack to make sure we understood each other.

Preparing for South Korea has proved no different to all my previous adventures. Sure it's exciting, but for the most part it just blows. Visa's, passport photos that need to be 3.5cm x 4.5 cm instead of 2 x 2, criminal background checks, recruiters, and basically any other government run agency is enough to make me throw my hands up and say "It's too hard! I'm done!”

But I don't of course because I love being outside of America. I love being in other countries. I love traveling. I love living among the locals. And most of all I love being a foreigner.

As my departure date nears closer and closer, I am overwhelmed with the possibilities of the next year. I keep thinking about how great it's going to be, how hard it's going to be, and how the heck I'm going to figure out what comes next. However, today I spent a good hour thinking about all the stuff about the good ol' US of A that I'm going to miss. And so this post serves no purpose except to list the things I'll miss, and so that I can feel all nostalgic when I re-read and re-read this post millions of times over the next year. Here goes:


- The terms "medium" or "large" when deciding how many calories/caffeine you'll put into your body via ONE drink at the local cafe
- Brunch. The love affair between breakfast and lunch. Two words that'll make my heart melt. Breakfast Sandwich.
- My door slamming open, window shades flailing open as my mom tries to "nicely" wake me up.
- A steaming cup of delicious coffee aside my bedside table to make up for so abruptly waking me up
- The use of sarcasm. Because lets face it, lost in translation is an understatement when trying to be witty and sarcastic with the locals.
- Pickles and Peanut Butter. I don't know why, but only here can I truly enjoy binge-eating pickles or spoon fulls of crunchy Skippy.
- The reliability of my own toilet. I don't know what it is about going to the bathroom in another country, but inevitably something very bad happens whether I'm prompted to push the left side of a button or pull a string to flush the toilet.
- Websites like Hulu and Pandora. The only way I was going to get caught up on LOST was to lock myself in my room for 5 days while watching back-to-back episodes starting from the first season on Hulu.
- Last but not least: Trying to teach my dad the ins and outs of recycling as he holds up an empty plastic bottle of Coke completely dumbfounded.