Society is changing. More men and women are navigating the difficult path between career and family and even long-distance travel, as more students participate in study abroad or spend time overseas to gain perspective.
Travel is now widely considered an ingredient in a rich life, something desirable. Gone are attitudes like the hobbits of the Shire pre-Bilbo Baggins. It's become as essential for personal enrichment as love! And it's changing the way we map our lives.
Unlike travel, love is a hard subject for me to write on. I've had several relationships, all of which ended disastrously, with hurt and recrimination on both sides — by that standard, I'm a failure at this love business. You write what you know, so what could I possibly have to say about this?
I know this: I like having someone to get lost with, but I want a job with uncertain hours where I travel all the time. I'd be overjoyed to be sent to a foreign country. What about the person I might leave behind?
Wanderlust makes relationships difficult if you think relationships are built on stability and proximity. I don't think my wanderlust will go away. I'm shit at long-distance. So does that mean I avoid love? Try to keep things casual? Do I have to sacrifice one for the other?
I don't know. These are questions I'll probably spend years trying to work through. But I'm certainly not alone in wondering.
Sarah Herrington's article "A Silent Partner to Share the Path of Love" is probably the best illustration I've read to date about this struggle, and if you are sailing these waters yourself, I think you should read it, too. Happy hunting.
Contemplatively yours,
Caroline the Adventurer
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