I DO WHAT I WANT
It’s 2019 and I’ve just opened my very own tattoo shop. After years of learning the craft of -how I do not want to run- a tattoo shop, I was finally ready. It took me one year to plan everything, starting from scratch. I had half of the finances and luckily my dear friend loaned me the other half I needed to get started. If she didn’t, than I had to wait a couple more years to save it up. Because no bank would loan money to this poor, tattooed girl with a dream. If I want something, I want it now. Because postponing something, means it’ll take up space and time of something else I could be doing at that point. Doing things the second I decide I want it, means I can do more things. The shop was up and running for four months and I went on my first vacation after opening. I need to say this. Because I love the fact that the shop owner of where I left, told me, I had to prepare myself because I could NOT go on a vacation in the next five years. ‘Running a shop is not as easy as you think it is!’
..And whatever entrepreneurial skills limit your life is not applicable to everybody, ma’m…
LOCKED DOWN
After opening my shop I got into a relationship. We went on a trip to Thailand and I hoped that this would be the start of many. But Covid hit and we were in a lock down. We took a trip to Paris when traveling was sort of allowed. And while it was fun to flip off the world between the rules and regulations, we were making plans to travel big time when the shitshow was over. A lot of stuff happend after lock-down but unfortunately the big travels plans weren’t one of them. The relationship ended but my travel desire was fueled up and ready for take-off.
A friend from the UK contacted me after years and it felt like faith. I asked him what he was doing for NYE and when he said the word ‘nothing’ my flight was booked.
As if that wasn’t enough, we started dating and he traveled for work which meant all my travel dreams were about to become reality. The cherry on top for HSP-me, was that now I had 24/7 personal travel support. Life couldn’t get any better..
..It couldn’t and it didn’t. I mean, the two years of traveling were nicely balanced between good and not so great adventures. But now after two years I hope I will finally learn how to make my travels more positive than balanced. But the bad, sad and overwhelmed had to happen because they showed me what my triggers where. I never expected to flawlessly travel and only have great experiences. But I wish I knew my HSP/HSS a bit better to explain to my travel partners and to myself on the solo trips, what was -unfortunately- normal behaviour that I displayed and how I/ we could handle a triggering situation better.
2023: Wales - Curacao - London - Ibiza - Wales - Wales - Belgium - Texel - Paris - Crete - Algarve - Wales
2024: Berlin - Japan - Thailand - Barcelona - Paris - Wales - Wales - Luxembourg - Gran Canaria - Middelburg - Sardinia - Malaga
TECH SUPPORT
I guess you can figure out why I went to Wales that often, because 24 travels doesn’t mean 24 different destinations. For me, it was about the traveling and being in a foreign country and managing everything that comes with it. It’s funny how I love to travel but the actual getting from A to B is not my fav and has a lot of potential triggering situations.
For example, I learned that for me, I need several ways of payment on hand. Because when I wanted to pay for my train ticket with cash in Wales, the money I had was so old it wasn’t valid anymore. My Maestro creditcard didn’t work because I forgot my passcode. So my bf was my customer support for my episode of sadness and annoyment and ordered my ticket online. While I told my mom to keep an eye out on the post for my passcode as it was going to be sent to my house.
I also carry a pouch with all kinds of chargers and power banks. The phone is the lifeline to everything for me and I get anxiety if I imagine myself traveling pre-phone era. Like how do you know how to find the way to something when walking?
I get anxiety when my phone simply doesn’t work in another country and/ or I have to get a local SIM. Better to spend a lot of money on data than to sleep in a cardboard box because you couldn’t book an Uber to the hotel because you’re too HSP to ask people for help.
FREN SUPPORT
I know I’m not the easiest to travel with but only when I get an episode, for the rest I’m super fun and easy going. And I love my friends for the patience they have and to truely be a team in stressful situations. Because it’s a balance, I step up when it comes to flying roaches in an AirBnB or driving a rocky terrain in the dark in the middle of nowhere. They just need to help me with parking and loud places. So yay to traveling with people that are not, or in a different way, HSP. We all need each other apparently.
I’ve been to Curacao twice before and the third time I decided to go for a month. My friend would join after a week which meant, I would have had many episodes of being overwhelmed trying to figure everything out by myself prior to her arrival. Like how driving is terrible there and every crossing was super overwhelming for me. Cars waiting behind me while I’m try to merge in to a lane without traffic lights, where it’s pure luck to find a spot to get in quickly. Me driving a stick for the first time again wasn’t too helpful, getting frustrated and overwhelmed every time the engine stalls, while these cars are still behind me.
The AirBnB was on a corner on a slope, of a busy road, and on top of that it had a gate which you had to open and close manually. So a triple HSP-me threat; busy road, driving up and down a slope, park on the side of a busy road to open and close the gate. Funnily, not funnily enough, I had the same at my Algarve trip. But I devoted a whole blog about that fail so I won’t get into it here.
I was so thankful when my friend and saviour arrived. She was my wingwoman in the car and jumped the fence, gate, every time. She was my Siri on the road, guiding me through busy intersections and told me to Go-Go-Go! and I went-went-went.
Ah Ibiza, a place I would never ever travel to if it wasn’t for my other friend who was dying to go there. It was the highest on her list and as planning and doing things out of the daily routine is not her strongest suit, I surprised her for her birthday with a trip. As two HSP gals we didn’t explore much but we had a great vacation. We’ve been friends long time so we know our own and each others difficulties. Where I have to put my patience in to practice when she has to make a decision, she needs to spend 2 hours alone when I need to sleep due to being majorly overwhelmed by a crowded Ibiza hippie market. Trying to order food, while my friend strolls the market one more time, sitting at a long table between strangers reading a Spanish menu with a dog between my legs 2 meters from a live band. She came over when she was done and sat across from me. It was so loud and I was so overwhelmed I couldn’t talk. We texted, we ate, I drove in silence, I slept, we’re good.
NO SUPPORT
I was excited to start this journey in 2023 and I made a plan per month on where I wanted to travel to. I had my bf trips, my friend trips and inbetween those, I planned my solo trips. My long distance destinations were already with my friends so I wanted to do some trips closer to home by myself. So the trips I did alone were Belgium, Texel, Paris and Algarve. Algarve was my bucketlist trip and the trips prior where the ones where I would slowly build my confidence up to go on that adventure. Belgium was a hiking trip with Mochi and it went just fine. There was a restaurant adjacent to the hotel near the National Park so no dinner anxiety this time. There are always eyes staring at me when I’m alone or with Mochi and whatever people are thinking, when I’m in a positive mood I’m not affected by my own thoughts of insecurity and what people would think. It’s funny how your own mood actually determines if you let thoughts of ‘what will others think’ enter your brain.
Seeing The Birth Of Venus by William Bouguereau in Musee D’Orsay was on my list, so I planned a trip to Paris. And you would think that an HSP would plan things thoroughly to avoid possible triggering situations. But I’m still a paradox of traits and not planning everything or double checking everything is definitely ‘Me’. Like; I think it’s fun to wing things, maybe the ‘sensation’ in Highly Sensation Seeking is ment for the sensation of being overwhelmed. Mostly though I really believe it’s fine and it gives me less stress in advance when I’m thinking that it’ll be alright. But wat wasn’t going to be alright was the fact that I went there on a Sunday evening to Tuesday morning, wanting to spend the Monday at the museum, on the only day it’s CLOSED!
So in situations when I pulled a ‘me’ and failed at something, I also had to fix my own mess. I rebooked the Tuesday morning for a Tuesday evening and had exactly one hour to spend at the museum. Rushing, stressing, but it had to be done. Luckily without any triggering situations. But how annoying to have nobody else to blame but myself and how annoying it is that there is nobody to double check you or help you.
I feel alone in awesome moments that I wish I could share, but definitely also when things don’t go well. And in moments like that I realised that having some support, no matter where or how is better than thinking I can do everything by myself.
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