The Hidden Costs of Desperate Travel

Vacationing in Scottsdale, Arizona last week—my second visit to the Southwest Sun Belt since late December—I stopped to consider, and not for the first time, the cost of this privileged life I lead.

I’m not talking dollar and cents either, although one can never ignore the bottom line altogether. Rather, what is the emotional cost of always being somewhere else?

“Oh, I assumed you guys were away so I didn’t bother to invite you to our party,” friends and acquaintances often say to me on the phone. Or: “Were you guys in town that week? I didn’t even think to phone.” Then there’s my own internal monologue that typically begins, “I’d volunteer, own a dog, take a part time job, etc etc but I’m not sure exactly if I will be in town then.”

Always being somewhere else, means I’m not here a lot, wherever ‘here’ may be. Not that I don’t enjoy a lovely west coast life, but it’s one that sees me heading out to the airport a lot.

As a former expat who later engaged in a global career that had me out of town at least a third of the year on business, it has been extremely difficult to build up a network of friends and on-going activities that require my physical presence and engagement. Compounding matters, we chose to move to Vancouver for Rodney’s job, a city in which we knew next to no one. Seventeen years later (gasp!) I can honestly say I know tons of people but none I would call immediately upon returning from a trip (the ultimate sign of a close friend).

In our early years when Rodney was away on business most of the time, I used to fret that I could die while he was away and no one would be at my funeral, least of all my husband. Pathetic you may think, but I’m not the first former expat spouse to have such thoughts. I just have the nerve to write them down.

Now, as I contemplate celebrating my sixtieth birthday in a few months, the same rule holds. I could give a party, but no one would come from the corners of the earth where most of my oldest friends live.

I’ve made my trade-offs and take full responsibility for them (and lots of pictures).  I could have done things differently. Soon after we moved to Vancouver, for example, I certainly could have jumped in and joined any number of groups and made a ton of friends. But I was terribly gun shy about meeting new people after surviving the incestuously small, Canadian Embassy communities abroad. Too often for me, someone’s nose would get out of joint because the turkeys, salmon, Alberta beef, apples, maple syrup you-get-my-drift were delivered by our Embassy to me before someone else (shoot me now!)

It also was never my personality to be part of a small gang in which everything about you is known (or made up!) I like to spread my friendships around because it works for the curious side of me. The more people I know, the more interesting stories about life I hear and the more experiences I collect. This is why travel is so appealing to me.

Still, as I approach an important milestone in my life in a few months (and begin hearing about parties parties and more parties going on around me to celebrate other people’s 60^th) I confess I do sigh at the idea of a being such a loner. It’s so true you can’t have everything (although I come pretty darn close!)

So I’ll settle for seeing the world and enjoy the company—even if it has to be virtual at times—of a few good friends.

It’s a price I’m willing to pay.