Regrets Have Long Shadows
When I embarked upon my travel plan as a nomad, it was a five-year dream. The particulars didn’t matter to me. I’d make it up as I went along, but I wanted it to be five years.
I knew it would be a one-off, and it had to be worth giving up everything and starting over again one day — five years, in my head, was where the financial sacrifice made sense. Five years was when selling everything and starting over reached a break-even point.
That sort of sacrifice of walking away from your life, your friends, your family… that’s not something you up and do twice, you know? It’s all one go, because when it’s over, you know you’ll never be willing to make those same sacrifices again. And people say things like, “But you’ll travel again!”
It’s not the same. It’ll never be the same as doing it when there is no end game in mind – there’s no home, no storage clock ticking, no sublease you’ve got to worry about or housesitter.
“But it’s still travel.” Says you, because you don’t understand what being a nomad really means, really feels like. Having a home and obligations on the other side of travel is not the same as being in the midst of travel and having none of that. True nomadism is an unknown quantity to probably 99% of the planet. You can’t possibly understand. And that’s okay, as long as I know you can’t understand.
But no, I’ll never make those same sacrifices again. I’ll never be an all-in nomad again, because now I’ve ponied up and paid The Man and bought me a life I’m still paying a credit card company for. The bank owns me. For now, anyhow.
Yes, I will travel again. Yes, I might live abroad. Greece often whispers my name. Sometimes, I whisper back, “I’m coming. I just don’t know when yet.”
But it’ll never be like my nomad days. Maybe that’s a good thing.
Still – it wasn’t my call. I didn’t want to stop travelling. I had to stop.
I didn’t end my travels because I wanted to, they ended because my body couldn’t take it anymore.
Photo: There came a time when most of my travels were about where I would sit down next. This was a rare day of exploring in Bucharest, Romania — where things took a turn and my nomadic end days began. But if you’re gonna be a hobbled traveller and incapable of going far between breaks, I recommend bringing a book [or Kindle e-reader] and sitting in a 18th-century monastery courtyard; like this, the Stavropoleos Monastery Church, from 1724.
The Beginning of My End
Bulgaria (April 2018) was the last place I enjoyed on my terms, but things had been slowly coming apart on me already. None of my beds had been great, for a long time already. I’d spent all of February with insomnia in Cambodia, for instance.
But then they all became bad. One after another, bad, bad, bad, all starting with Serbia in Spring of 2018.
No back support in Belgrade for six weeks. Off to Zagreb for a week, where the great-looking apartment with an indoor sauna had shitty worn-out foamies. Then to Budapest, where an old IKEA day bed finally broke when I was sleeping on it – leading to an AirBNB fight with the owner, forcing me to defend myself by saying “I may be fat but I weigh less than two people having sex and if your bed can’t handle sex…” (AirBNB took my side, didn’t charge damages, and wouldn’t allow the host to give me a bad review either. Go, AirBNB.)
Then it was off to a hostel in Warsaw, followed by a too soft hotel bed in the Polish countryside where I taught English for two weeks. Then the true beginning of the end: Bucharest, where the sofa bed (that wasn’t supposed to be a sofa bed) wouldn’t fold completely flat and, boom, destroyed my back so bad that I couldn’t even pull up my pants without using the tongs I had in my kitchen kit for the first 10 days of the injury.
I got dry needling and massage and physiotherapy for my whole two months in Bucharest. I never saw anything beyond the neighbourhood I lived in.
No Cluj-Napoca, no Transylvania, no Timisoara.
No long, meandering walks seeing how “normal” people lived. No delving into history or wandering through museums. Just work, physiotherapy, and some restaurants. That’s all I experienced of Romania. (I’m still Facebook friends with Alexandru, the wonderful physiotherapist I had there, and I love the man.)
And Romania deserved better. It deserved to be seen, experienced, loved. It deserved enthusiasm and exploration. But I couldn’t give it those things, and that’s how it goes.
Photo: Warsaw was another good day. I only had the one day to see the city, as I was off to the countryside to teach English to privileged kids, but luckily my back was able to handle things if I took lots of breaks. This was the end of the day. I’d spent the morning listening to a classical music concert I’d happened upon in a centuries-old church, then had lunch with a couple gay men I met, then wandered around and tried perogies, then watched a World Cup soccer game at a bar, and walked around doing photography. In the end, it was a 14-hour day. How I would have loved to have been able to explore so much in every town.
Changing on the Fly
Next, I cancelled my train to Turkey, another tiny travel dream. I flew instead. There, my little fantasy of sleeping in an ancient cave came true – but with the price of developing bronchitis, thanks to my dust allergies.
Strangely, that bad luck led to one of the nicest experiences I’d had in all four years, the doting of a Turkish mom and the experience of harvest season in a small village, and I’ll always cherish that. What a wonderful gift that became.
Here’s the video I made of my second-last day there, where the ladies of the village invited me to experience their making gozleme in a work party — a tradition that is dying:
Next was back to Sofia, Bulgaria, where I’d booked for seven weeks strictly because I knew the bed and I liked the bed. There, I began to feel a little better despite the 80 steps up to my apartment.
Next up was another dream: Christmas in Sicily, including an opera performance at Teatro Massimo, but first a pit stop in Bari, Italy, where I fell in love with the rustic food and the Southern Italian vibe.
From there, I took a flight to Catania, Sicily, just in time for warnings of an incoming storm that night – a “Meteorological Event” – Anticyclone Attila. Here’s a video I shot from the balcony during the anticyclone.
Alone in my guest house, it sounded like gunfire hitting the windows. My room’s windows flooded during the night, much of my stuff getting wet. Frustrated with yet another bad night, I arranged my exit to Palermo a day early via train.
Naturally, the only restaurant open near the station in Catania was a kebab joint – and I got diarrhea on the train. Fan-fucking-tastic. Luckily I had the right meds in my bag.
Arriving in Palermo, it was an hour before my host met me. Entering the apartment, my heart fell as I discovered just how old and unsupportive all the furniture was, where I’d live for seven painful weeks. The kitchen window leaked – more flooding that night.
Despite having the worst furniture in four years, enduring the stench of rotting fish wafting up from the mercato in the streets below, the hellishly steep 88 steps to my rooftop balcony, I still managed to have amazing memories from Sicily — but I also spent countless hours on the cold, hard tile floor with my legs up the wall to try to stem my back pain.
Photo: Doesn’t look like much to you, but it looks like victory to me — a rare wonderful day out. I was in Bari, Italy and had just seen the basilica where the body of Saint Nicholas, yes, Santa Claus, was interred. I thought it was a fine time to enjoy a beer and sit on the Mediterranean before continuing to see — and eat — more of Bari.
Tolls Taken are Cumulative
What you have to understand is, what I’ve just explained in 482 words sounds like an ordeal – but I lived that. I lived that over the course of 209 days.
And that’s not when bad beds and bad furniture ended. That’s simply when I decided my body just couldn’t take it anymore. I remember sitting there, drinking espresso on a gorgeous mid-December morning, taking in the stunning historic city sprawling around me, and dreading the 88 stairs down and inevitable pain that would come just because I wanted to see something from the ground, not from my penthouse.
I wouldn’t get back to Canada for a few more months, but I was done.
I’d make the same decision again on that same day over that same espresso, but I’d still be wracked with this same remorse I feel now, that I was forced to end things. The old “heart is willing but the body ain’t” scenario.
Strangely, my back saved me, in a way. Had I not ended things when I did, I’d have been travelling when the pandemic struck. I only outran the pandemic by five short months.
I can’t imagine the emotional toll that would have taken on me, given my predisposition towards anxiety and depression.
It’s strange, this weird emotional dichotomy of hating the fact that I was forced to end my travels – yet being so, so, so grateful it happened and that I’m now safe in a pandemic. I feel both of those things with every cell in my body — anger and gratitude.
Photo: I seldom got to enjoy nights while travelling, because pain had often set in, so I’d be back home. But sometimes I did, and it was glorious. Old Town, Bari, Italy.
Making Peace with Ghosts
I don’t know if I’ll ever really reconcile how my travels ended. Some things, we live with them, but we never really accept them. I can be grateful to be safe in a pandemic yet be pissed off it came to this, right? Many of us are probably angry with the detours our lives have made by way of the pandemic. At least we have a sort of collective co-misery.
My pain and discomfort, the agony of it all, never became the storyline when I was travelling. I couldn’t deal with the comments and unsoliticed advice.
“Get a massage!” Sure, like the one I had in Sofia, Bulgaria, where the masseuse touched me inappropriately between my legs? Or in Tirana, Albania, where the guy laughed at me and asked me how much I weighed — when I was on a high after just walking 75 kilometres in 7 days in Rome?
People were so unrealistic at times. Some folks said baffling things, like “Get a new chair!” Oh, okay. It’s that easy? Just buy a new chair for every new town I’m in? Great advice, thanks! That’ll be a super way of keeping my budget intact.
Even better, I actually had people suggest I buy a new mattress and sell it to the host. Seriously? With what imaginary piles of money? If I could afford buying mattresses willy-nilly, would I be staying in places that cost $1,000 a month? And you’re delusional if you think hosts are that amenable.
Bah. Memories. I find myself even now teary-eyed while recalling the dark moments that dictated my giving up and calling it a day. Moments I don’t care to deep-dive into for your entertainment, sadly. Not yet, anyhow.
Photo: I’m thrilled I went back to Sofia, Bulgaria for seven weeks, because the apartment was in a fantastic blue-collar but young and hip neighbourhood filled with great eateries, parks, but most importantly, wonderful food stores for someone who was LIVING there and not just playing tourist. I will forever grin at the butcher shop I went to for whole chickens, where the English-challenged butcher would tell me they were “village smile chicken.” I think he meant organic, free range chickens from the villages, but I wish I could find such delicious Village Smile Chickens here in Canada.
Finding Positives in the Dark
But I’ll tell you what I’m grateful for…
That I had an INCREDIBLE bed in Rome and had a wonderful week exploring there.
That I was adopted by the most wonderful Turkish family for two weeks in Capadoccia.
That I persevered through all my pain and ended my travels with a lifetime high point – seeing my ancestral grounds in the Scottish Highlands.
And I’m grateful I had good hosts and a great neighbourhood in Sofia, Bulgaria while I was recovering – handsy evil masseuse aside.
And I’m grateful that, somehow, no matter how bad all the beds and stays were for most of my final nine months, I still had absolutely wonderful days in every city I visited. Thank God for those “good days,” because I’ve got memories of something other than pain.
Photo: Day 2 in Rome.
Sometimes, Reconciling Ain’t a Thing
Still, it turns out that no matter how well things play out, regrets linger.
So, today, a beautiful Friday where I had other plans, I saw my friend Oana’s Facebook post in which she shared photos of feast day food delivered to her in Vancouver by her Romanian parents.
Whomp! Down came a cloud of sadness — that, because of a broken bed one night, I never saw the Transylvania she grew up in. I never saw those rolling hills and ancient farmlands and legendary castles, I never had those weekends in the countryside I’d planned on.
Sometimes, despite knowing there could have been no other outcome than that which came, regrets still cast long shadows.
The trouble with having an adventure of a lifetime and recognizing that none of it may happen again is, well, knowing the adventure is over and, yes, none of it might ever happen again.
In the end, the journey I’m on now is one of trying to reconcile something different: I did the best I could.
Despite incredible back pain, being upwards of 300 pounds, constantly living on thin financial margins, I had experiences living in communities and cultures that others might never have. And I did it all in the “Before Times.”
I will travel again. I’ll see other amazing places. Maybe I’ll prefer having an end date, a home to return to. Maybe I’ll be stronger, healthier, better able to appreciate the fullness of my experiences when those days come.
But, for a while, it was amazing living a life that was entirely about a choice made on a whim in some foreign room one night. From this city to that, from this culture to that, with no end in sight.
From the swelter of Cambodia to the island of Crete, from the derelict hills of Tirana, Albania to the vastness of the Scottish Highlands. From a storm-struck Greek Island in winter to the Western Sahara.
I have regrets. But I also have gratitude. However bad things got for a while – I know how much worse they could have been and, somehow, I made the best of it.
Regrets casts long shadows… but gratitude does too.
Thanks for reading. Have a great weekend.
Heads up: Next week, I’ll share the first of my book chapters, and if you’re not a paying subscriber, you won’t be seeing that — it will not eventually be made free to read. It will remain premium content.
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