Say ‘Goodbye’ and Wave ‘Hello’ – Musings from YVR Airport

In the winter of 1999, on a bus travelling from Bruxelles to Bordeaux, I met a man named Dave. I had placed cotton swabs between each of my toes because huge blisters had formed from all of my exploring Bruxelles and Paris over the previous ten days and he caught me trying to be discrete as I tended to them. It only took a few words for us to quickly realize that we had being Canadians abroad in common. He was a few years my senior and had been backpacking for several months. Back then I was still just a frightened kid. We covered the usual topics most travellers spin through when they first meet: Where have you been? What was the best place you visited? How many countries have you visited? At the time there wasn’t much for me to relate only the usual tourist clichés – the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre. The whole experience was very new and the jet lag from the six-hour time difference had shocked my system. It took a little while but we dug a little deeper and eventually got to the ‘why’ of things.

I explained how unnatural everything felt for me. It was one of the first real regrets I could feel deep in myself as I was living it, but I was stubborn and had talked for so long about backpacking through Europe that I felt that it was something I had to do. I had saved up all my money over two summers to fund the trip. I packed a bag and sewed a Canadian flag on it. I brought along all kinds of paraphernalia I couldn’t imagine packing now like a sleeping bag and a camp stove. Also in my bag were letters. Before I left I must have received a half dozen handwritten letters from my family and some of my closest friends wishing me well and lamenting how strange and empty life was going to be with me not around. I was nineteen and my immediate social circle was the widest it was ever going to be and the friendships I had forged through high school and college the deepest they would ever feel.

It was different for Dave. “Nah!” he said. “My brother dropped me off at the airport, gave me a hug and said ‘seeya’round’.” 

At the time I was mad at myself for what I had done. Ten days in and I was scared; I was sore; And, worst of all, I could not justify to myself why I had left behind my friends and so much joy.

Naturally, the blisters on my feet healed and with every step I took, my confidence grew. The fear subsided and the feeling of newness from the charm of each new town visited became intoxicating and twenty years, and so many trips, later and there is never any apprehension about whether or not I was ever doing the right thing.

The road is home and my most natural state is between states.

When I settle I get routinized and comfortable and somehow my surroundings begin to pinch. My hands start to shake and some far off destination begins to call, and so I scheme. I make plans. And, eventually, I go.

That brings us to today. Forty years old began to approach and mortality began to shout. My father passed away three years ago and my grandmother passed away in August of last year. My friends have careers and started families. Some still live near where we grew up and some have moved away but they rarely see each other anymore. Doing so requires plans. I myself have long since moved away from the town where I grew up. I am a bit of a shipwrecked soul that spends a lot of time alone in his thoughts. I have made wonderful new friends over the years wherever I have settled and we keep in touch but it’s not at all the same as the friendships I nurtured back then. There were no handwritten letters this time before I boarded the plane, nor did I expect any – a few likes on Facebook is now sufficient. Plenty of people shook my hand and wished me well, but there were no tears or sense that life just won’t be the same. If anything there was envy. Perhaps we are all a bit older now and know better. Maybe we have evolved.

I have a theory that a mid-life crisis is the psyche’s way of admitting the fact that it knows that at any other time in human history it would be dead – and I have no doubt that this is the case for me. Some people celebrate their mid-life crisis by buying an expensive car or having an affair with someone half their age. I, on the other hand, have decided to return to what I was doing 20 years ago when I was just a wide-eyed college kid – leaving home (wherever that is now) and seeing where the breeze blows me. The world has changed. Travel has changed. Back then there was no social media, there were a billion fewer people, and there was no such thing as Airbnb or Booking.com.

If I’m being honest I haven’t really changed. I’m still foolish and irresponsible and I recognize that deciding on a life on the road is completely self-indulgent. What I can say is that I understand Dave a whole lot better now and I certainly don’t feel like I’m missing out or have any regrets about leaving. A permanent residence seems a bit overrated, today, but that could change. The world is so connected now that I may be thousands of miles away but my friends aren’t just the people who share the same zip code with me. Really the best friends I still have are those same friends from 20 years ago who I know will always be in my life even if we don’t see each other all that often. I know that if I stroll through town one day and we do get to see each other again that the reunion will seem all the sweeter from so much time spent apart. The banter will be all the richer and the connection will be all the more meaningful because I’ve missed my family and my friends through the years regardless of what city I’ve lived in. Maybe that’s what growing up is?