Chapter 2: Untethered

I’m in the process of typing up my old travel essays about the Oceans to Outback trip in Australia that I took. The writing is horrible and I cringe almost every other sentence. I mean I look back at these wondrous places of natural beauty and all I say is “it was fun.” or “it was nice.” It has also become a habit for me to correct even those small and minute grammatical and punctuation errors, but I am determined to fight those urges and leave the essays as is, for there is no point in revising and improving work that has been written and laid to rest. But as I’m transcribing my work from the written page and onto this screen I get to relive the incredible experience that was this trip. More importantly, however, I get to remember all of the experiences that I shared with my friend Sarah who was brave enough to put up with me and my particular traveling ways. I reached out to her the other day for the first time in over two years just to commemorate our unique experience and to let her know that I haven’t forgotten about her.

Have you ever really thought about just how easy it is for people to disappear completely out of your life? I don’t mean people that you talked to just every now and then or friends by circumstance, I mean people that you shared a unique bond or experience with, people who you thought would always just be around in one form or another. My friend Sarah is a great example: I spent half a year traveling around Australia with Sarah. We slept in cramped campervans, we hiked wondrous sites, we studied the same subjects, and laughed about all of the crazy stories we had, like when she had to run down and then back up an entire mountain in the span of a half hour because I was injured. After sharing so many experiences and spending a certain amount of time in someone’s company, you just start to think that in one way or another they will remain a part of your life. When I reached out to her the other day, it was the first time in years. I look back to all of the friendships I have made in my life: all of the close friends in high school, college, and even Americorps; and I think that I can actually count on both hands how many people I stay in touch with now. It’s not anyone’s fault, that’s just how life works. You part ways and carry on with your respective lives. It’s unreasonable to ask someone to be such a large part of your life when you no longer see them day in and day out, but I’m always afraid that I use that justification too liberally.

I often lose myself in whatever is in front of me. Whether that is reading, writing, volunteering, working out, or whatever. It is really hard for me to stay engaged in conversations over text or on social media, and it’s something that I wish I was better at. It isn’t much easier for me to find the time to pick up the phone and call someone either. And to tell you the truth, after a long day at work, which I have been becoming increasingly frequent, and I come home tired and my brain is dead, the last thing I want to do is socialize and have a conversation. I am one of those persons that need to be alone in order to recharge. I’ve been getting better at it, but I used to need three to four hours a day of alone time to reach that point where I actually feel recharged. So, slowly but surely, I feel like the close relationships I have made over the years have been slowly slipping away. I feel like they are slipping away faster than I had hoped.

Sometimes I feel like if I lived by myself, away from Alexa or my family, I would slowly drift away into isolationism and seclusion as I lost myself at whatever was in front of me. I feel like I would look around one day and notice that I was all alone. I firmly believe that my friends and family are the ones that keep me tethered to this world, but as I see them less and less in my life, slowly but surely I become untethered, ready to float away.

I don’t think I could ever drift off completely. Alexa and my family would never let that happen. They are people that I know that will always be there for me unconditionally and I will always love them for that. But there are still so many other people I want to share and reminisce with. It is no fun to relive unforgettable moments by yourself. I am a relator, I would gladly take a select number of people I can bond with closely and intimately over hundreds of hollow friendships. I don’t need new friends, I just want to keep my old ones.

None of them live near me, so it’s not like any of my friends can be a part of my everyday life. It’s been really difficult for me, but I have started to make an active effort to find excuses to reach out to them to catch up or even just to tell them how much I appreciate them. I hope, though, that this would be enough. Enough to maintain the lines, before they fray and disappear completely. I think it’s enough to keep me from becoming untethered. For a while, when I would read my travel journal, where these essays are stored, I thought that line of communication with Sarah would be snapped. I was always afraid that I had waited too long to reach out to her and that when I finally did, she wouldn’t respond. The first thing she said to me was that it was so good to hear from me and I sighed a huge breath of relief. I don’t think I will be drifting away anytime soon.