CAN’T PRETEND
Okay, this is the one. The scariest blog I’ll write, because every other blog was just about my inner dialogues and my POV on whatever I went through during my travels. I love to travel solo and reflect on situations, but I also love travelling with other people. Although being with another person 24/7 definitely asks for a different approach, traveling with friends certainly has it’s benefits. Voicing out my boundaries and having the difficult conversations when needed is super important and something I learned along the way. I hope that with my new found knowledge, the first person I’ll travel with will be one lucky bastard.
Trail and error..trials and lots of errors, that is how I look back, making all the uncomfortable situations into lessons. Hope the lemonade will taste sweet because there were lots of lemons. :P
IBIZA
Sharing some things about my trip to Ibiza, because it was the first time travelling with my friend who I’ve known for twentynine years now. It was also the first time I took Mochi with me on a plane. I felt confident enough that my friend knew me well enough to go through difficult situations with me. And it would be nice to have somebody with, me while I took my first flight with Mochi. Somebody that could help with handling everything that comes with it. My friend is a bit calmer and slower, in a good way. It was a nice balance with my stressful face.
Mochi comes to work with me every day. Her bench is the travel crate, so to her it feels familiar and she has no problem getting in. Having a suitcase, a big travel crate, a dog on a leash and figuring out where to check in, where to bring her, and keeping track of the time was pretty stressful. It was also my friends first time flying in a very long time. So while she was super excited, I was super stressing. Luckily we balanced each other out and didn’t expect anything from the other person. She didn’t tell me to lighten up and be happy. And I didn’t get upset with her because I was stressing about the important things I needed to figure out. This helped me a lot to not stay in the feeling. Once Mochi was taken away in her crate it was out of my hands and I went along into my friends happy mood. So in this situation I was asking my friend for her patience, without using my words.
During our stay we went to a very fun but crowded Ibiza hippy market. One stroll was enough for me and I got super overwhelmed. She wanted to do another round and pick out gifts for her daughters. I couldn’t manage, so I decided to go sit outside at a restaurant and she would come my way as soon as she was done. In this situation, I tried to give her my patience, so she could stay at the market.
I was sat at a long table, shared with other people, shoulder to shoulder and with a dog between my legs. It wasn’t ideal. On top of that there was a live band playing music. Luckily I had my AirPods and I just tried to focus on my own music and center myself. Trying to drift off a bit and trying to become unbothered by the hecticness around me.
Once my friend came, she sat across from me. I was super overwhelmed and I couldn’t speak because this meant I had to take out my AirPods and raise my voice for her to hear me. Eventhough she was sitting right opposite of me. Thinking about doing that already tired me out, so I started texting her. Because she knows me she doesn’t take anything personal and we had a chat by text. After a while we went home, don’t ask me in what state I was then because I really don’t remember. I just know that once we arrived at the apartment I slept for about three hours. She let me sleep until I woke up by myself, she gave me her patience and wasn’t upset that I wasted time while we could have done something else. She could also be upset she had to entertain herself for an unknown amount of hours.
It all went without words because we have been friends for so long. We know we’re good and we don’t do anything to upset the other person with intention. We are there to have a good time but we are also aware that our good time is not always good for the other. There was enough space also, that if one of us really didn’t like how the other was handeling a situation, we could talk about it without any offence. Because our end goal was to have a good time together. This means that maybe there needed to be some adjusting in how we, as an individual, would like to see things.
THE PERFECTLY IMPERFECT TRIP
The last big trip I took with somebody else was February 2024 with my ex partner. Before the trip took place we talked about expectations..In a way..
He traveled for work and he asked me along on this trip to Japan. He would go to New Zealand and Australia after Japan, but in between that he had some time off. We decided to do a little Thailand trip because that was what I wanted to do before he asked me to Japan. So this would work out perfectly.
He previous travel experience with a partner wasn’t a good one. So I guess he was a bit hesitant, but so was I. I didn’t want to be another failed girlfriend travel experience for him. Especially this one being a work travel one. I felt a bit of a pressure, but I was sure it was going to be okay. Experiencing so many cool things together as a couple will bring lots of joy to smooth out the bumps along the way. The mutual goal is to have a good time right!
So I prepared myself to go with the flow, seeing as this is also a work trip for him. I wouldn’t always know what the plan was and neither would he.
The trip was amazing, his colleagues were so kind to me and it helped me to open up and be my true self. I felt connected and when we hit a bump in the road we talked and listened to one another. We said sorry and we came back together in the good energy.
We closed japan off with a business class flight to Thailand. We didn’t have a lot of days in Thailand but we did have crazy itinerary with lots of hopping from place to place. Arriving in Bangkok for the first days, I slowly started to notice I was pretty tired. I tried to keep it to myself because I didn’t know exactly how I was feeling. I didn’t want to change the good vibe we had.
I shared that I was feeling a bit off and I told him maybe I just need a nap. We were heading out to a Muy Thai fight so some rest prior would be nice. I asked him to wake me up after an hour and he went exploring Bangkok by himself.
I was woken up from such a hyper deep sleep that it scared me. He told me he had been knocking and calling me, but I didn’t hear a thing, I was completely knocked out. Now that I was awake, I felt like I was in a twighlight zone, awake but still asleep. I felt like I had taken drugs and it scared me shitless. I expressed it and I wanted to cry, if I didn’t already. All the while I was thinking that I didn’t want to ruin his vacation as this was his time off inbetween the work destinations. I told him I was sure that I would be fine if we just continued with our plan. Which basically meant I was faking being okay, hoping that I would believe it hard enough that I would, in fact, be okay in a while. In the tuktuk to the Muy Thai he secretly filmed my face through a mirror and when we got out he showed it to me. I cried so hard because I know, in my mind, I was trying so hard to have a chill vibe. My face said the complete opposite. It was the first time I was confronted with it. With the fact that my effort on the inside didn’t reflect on the outside. Basically that I can’t pretend to be okay. I was sad the whole time after, which made me upset also for ruining his vacation.
It had nothing to do with him because I think I was just too exhausted by saying yes to every adventure we had to this point on the trip. But he felt like it was about us and above all; that I looked like I didn’t have a good time. He didn’t know what to do, but neither did I.
I learned that the reason why I say yes to everything, is because I am high sensation seeking. I truly want to do and experience everything. But being a highly sensitive person, it is not in my personality to do it at the same level as another person. Let alone, an ADHD partner. I learned that I can say yes, but I need to voice out my boundaries. And I need to be with somebody that understands that when I share my boundary, it’s so we can keep vibing; to be my real and best self, I need recharging.
I wanted to be this perfect girlfriend who just loves everything and is happy all the time. But that is not human. It’s going through the bumps together and not getting upset or offended, but to talk about it. Figuring stuff out would help us be better prepared for any situation that would follow.
I learned to accept myself and I feel that I’m better prepared for situation that have lots of triggers now. I’m not saying I’ll never have my awkward face anymore. But how another person responds to me voicing out my feelings and needs is not something that should hold me back. It might just be that this is not the right person for me to travel with.
I figured out that when I feel overwhelmed in a social situation, I can just say that I’m not feeling well and I need to go home. Because it is socially accepted to say you’re unwell. Nobody needs to know that it’s something mentally, instead of something more socially accepted like a belly ache or a head ache. I was always scared to leave, for what they would think. Or how they would look at my partner for having this weird partner that wants to leave because she feels mentally unstable in a social, fun vibe situation.
In a situation of being overwhelmed, I have no control over myself and my body and I just have to accept that this is the case. The look on my face says so anyway apparently, I know now that this is what other people will see. So I might as well leave, because that is the only thing that will help me in those situations. Instead of forcing myself to stay with an inner dialogue - to stop being so fucking weird and act normal because there is literally nothing going on for me to behave like that! -
I’m voicing out now, that; entering social events, unprepared and without a charged emotional battery, with a lot of people I don’t know, is a big trigger and will 100% get me overwhelmed. I need to leave even before entering! :P
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