Travel Bug Dud

My happy-go-lucky husband has traveled world-wide, examining with joy each nook and cranny of all the places wherein he sets foot. Phil is blessed with a desire to see everything everywhere and has always called me with affection his “terrific travel companion.” And for the nearly twenty years that I’ve known him, I’ve waited with patience for him to eventually conclude that I’m actually a wanderlust dud, despite the many miles we’ve clocked together.

I’d actually drawn this conclusion about myself years ago—back in my forties, when it had seemed helpful to recognize such traits and peculiarities in my ever-expanding list about such things regarding my personality. It had been true, however, that my own passport was also covered with dozens of visas and travel stamps s as I had made way through many ports abroad. No, it was my approach to travel that was off and which led me to a self-assessment that could be negative in the face of my husband’s lack of awareness—and his enthusiasm. Prior to every trip, I donned a traveler’s skin, which served as a shield that protected me. Wariness, for example, was a mindset that took up a lot of space in my carry-on.

When we’d traveled with our respective kids, I’d always been the family member who, like a wayward sheep, could be counted on to leave the flock and do my own thing. I’d bail out, at the last minute, from at least a third of the trip’s activities, even though I had seen the carefully-crafted itinerary well in advance. Opting to do something else, alone, was typically motivated by my desire to avoid traveling in what I anticipated would be a noisy tourist group; or upon discovering that a particular excursion required spending too much time in crowded, indoor places which rendered me vaguely claustrophobic. Before long, I would feel trapped and have to engage in a battle to stave off a rush of anxiety and a corresponding dive in my mood. As a solo wanderer, I was simply content to amble through small shops or grab something to nosh on while engaging in some serious people watching.

Despite these idiosyncrasies of mine, Phil had never been one to restrain his pleasure for all we were experiencing when the two of us travelled alone, times which were not so constrained by my travel anxieties and when, buoyed by his presence, I could relax somewhat. Somewhat being the key word.

I was not surprised then when, as we headed out on a cross-country road trip last month to visit my daughter in Los Angeles, he once again tossed a big shout-out my way: I LOVE going places with you! he exclaimed, as we stood in the driveway piling our bags into the car. I smiled back at him, just as I did each of the million times we’d performed this routine. But it was a grin that belied what I had long believed to be so: The poor guy is either deluded or else he’s set a very low bar.

What did surprise me, however, was that this wasn’t the only thought I had as Phil and I strapped ourselves in with our seatbelts, me in the passenger’s seat and he in the driver’s. A different mental picture about what kind of travel buddy I might actually be had begun taking shape, even before Phil called up the travel route on our car’s GPS and then handed me the Atlas that he’d reviewed the evening before while I dithered about what to pack. While mindlessly scrolling through my computer earlier this morning—just one last time, in an excuse to delay getting into the car—I’d come across an online quiz. Such quizzes often came rolling into my inbox, despite the fact that I’d never signed up for them, because I’d been profiled somewhere, sometime, as a person interested in mental health concerns. “Are You a Highly Sensitive Person?” this one had read. “Here’s How to Tell!”

Sure, I’d scoffed, tell me something about myself that I don’t already know. Then, like a kid who’d been offered a chocolate chip cookie, I clicked on the link anyway. The car could wait. Phil was a patient type of guy.

Even before the article could load, I reminded myself that the term “Highly Sensitive Person” first appeared in the ‘90’s: it described individuals who were exceedingly sensitive to physical, emotional and social stimuli. I’d been impressed by the research on this topic back then, yet I couldn’t resist laughing now as I thought about how much social media hype had inevitably been accorded the label “HSP” over the ensuing years. A slew of polarizing on-line essays had appeared, some touting all the alleged virtues of the “highly-sensitives,” while culture-war pieces disparaged these personality types as “special snowflakes”—those who perceived themselves to be superior and unique.

Surely, there was some more reasonable way to understand those of us for whom the world often felt too big and who were easily overcome? This was the question that I couldn’t shake that day as we drove away from the curb and I pondered it as we passed through the toll booth onto the highway.

Already, I was deep into questioning the ways personality traits influence how we travel. Or not. But it wasn’t until we’d crossed the Illinois border toward St. Louis—five hours in which Phil and I had shared a comfortable silence—that I began conducting my own little survey.

“What have you been thinking about since we left home?” I asked him then, even though I was fairly certain I knew how he would respond.

“Oh, probably some of my favorite motorcycle trips,” he answered lightly, and then rattled off a half-dozen friends he hoped to visit in the upcoming year; when not on his “bike,” he loved traveling in his vintage Eurovan almost as much as he enjoyed visiting different people and places. “Today, maybe you’d like to pull into one of these little towns and check out an antique shop or two when we stop for lunch,” he added. “Are you up for that?”

Just as I had expected, Phil had flipped the switch that placed him in vacation mode—and with ease. Yet, he was already contemplating his own adventures, off by himself, in the future. As I studied his profile, it wasn’t hard to imagine him as content as he did so, the wind blowing around his helmet as he roared down the highway; and yet now he sat nestled by my side with a cardboard canister of Pringles and was happy about it. Moreover, the knowledge that our marriage was solid enough to weather such solitary time made me happy, too. I was acutely aware that he had the gift of enjoying his own thoughts and memories, especially when wrapped in silence.

Unlike him, I had spent the better part of our time on the road trying to adapt to our surroundings. I wondered how the people who lived in such sparsely populated places had landed there: were they able to make a decent living; how difficult was it to find an affordable grocery that was clean and had good choices. Perusing an antique shop hadn’t once crossed my mind, although previously read news reports about small towns being rife with methamphetamine labs certainly had.

Was I just a Debby-Downer? We sped past a giant billboard that advertised a tiny planet-named town north of Springfield, Missouri, and which screamed a message I failed to find humorous; “seriously,” I asked Phil with a sigh, “would you ever buy chocolate from a place that calls its fudge ‘The best in Uranus?’”

I wish I could tell you that the landscape south—first through Tulsa, then across northern Texas into New Mexico, and then up to California—was spectacular, but the skies were gray, the roads populated mostly by semis, tumbleweed racing across the plains; I wish I could say that I took photos along Route 66 and ate some of the best meals we’d ever encountered when actually the roadside diners offered little except greasy fried food. Phil, of course, was nevertheless ebullient.

Still, rather than being a little blue under the weight of all my negative thoughts, I also recognized I was in surprisingly good spirits at the prospect of spending so much unfettered time with my spouse; as well as getting to hang for a week with my daughter whom I hadn’t seen since June due to the pandemic.

So, why had I been feeling so reluctant about the trip? It was then that I remembered another online piece that made a different—and perhaps more astute—point: “Highly sensitive people expend their energy noticing people and environmental stimuli,” the author had noted, “and are easily overwhelmed by internal stimuli (thought, emotions and realizations).”

Suddenly, I realized how hard I was clinging to the reductive idea that my behavior while on the road was largely the consequence of some low-level anxiety. Maybe, in fact, the way I generally functioned while traveling wasn’t influenced solely by emotions, but by sights and sounds, and tactile experiences, as well.

In the many hours spent gazing through the windshield at the expanse of open land stretching as far as my eyes could see, little by little I began to appreciate how good the trip had actually turned out to be. There had been plenty of time for my husband and me to reflect on myriad topics, and to feel grateful that vaccines had made it possible for us to risk our journey westward. Pulling into a rest stop in Tucumcari, New Mexico, Mr. Go-Lucky announced once more how fun it was to take off on an adventure in the car with his favorite co-pilot.

And one of the best outcomes of the trip? By awarding myself a travel upgrade to HSP status and how it applied to me, I’d discovered a new way to think of it all. Before we had even paralleled parked on my daughter’s street, I’d decided my husband was neither deluded nor setting a low-bar when judging our jaunts. And while I knew I might be tagged by some as a snowflake, I was ready to relinquish the label of a travel bug dud. And I did it with happiness. Once and for all.