We’ve been through two Winters in a cabin consisting of less than 400 square feet.

We’ve driven countless hours just to grocery shop.

We’ve moved umpteen times in California.

We’ve worked in the heat amongst the bugs together.

We’ve lost together.

We’ve survived without the modern niceties I once thought necessities.

We’ve dealt with the panic of leaving the woods and greeting society again.

We’ve been through days that won’t quit and stresses that seem to multiply without end.

 

And through it all, we always ended up closer.

 

Yet, needless to say, it was time for a vacation.

 

Our first vacation.

 

 

 

 

The Chief and I had both traveled a good amount, a good amount of time ago. Suddenly it had been a decade-plus since we’d really traveled. We set off to right this wrong choosing Ecuador out of a Google search for “best place to learn to surf in Central or South America”. Before we knew it, we had tickets and our first two weeks mapped out. The rest of the time, we’d figure out later. We spent our last few days in California in a whirlwind of last-minute store stops and packing pick-ups. We worried about what to bring and how much and the what-ifs abounded but the thought to worry about us never crossed my mind.

 

 

 

 

 

We’d been through far harder ordeals than a beachside vacation, right?

Well…

It turns out that travel can be stressful. Who knew?! I for one did, yet in my decade of time away from it, I’d forgotten the overwhelm of plopping down into a place where everything is unknown and chose instead to focus on the idea of us, perfectly tanned, strolling down a beach at sunset.

 

 

 

 

Not quite, at least not at first.

 

At first, it was the overwhelm.

 

A week later, we realized why.

 

In our time together, one of us has always been the tour guide. When I arrived in an unknown land in Alaska, I had the best tour guide anyone could ask for. The Chief knew the land and the people and all of the systems. If I needed to know how to do something, he knew the right answer and could teach me and coach me. I was confident in an unfamiliar place because he was so adept at surviving in it. And then, when the tables turned and we headed to CA, I became the tour guide. I showed him the best beaches and taco trucks and navigated the five lanes of traffic while he watched me in awe of me in my element. And now, we’ve created a life in both of these places together, they have become our places. We are both comfortable in different ways, adept at different things and so we organize our life accordingly. We divvy up the labor based on what each person is adept at.

 

For example:

 

Driving in San Francisco: Julia

Driving in scary (to me) snow conditions: The Chief

Making a healthy dinner from a barren pantry: Julia

Making the best macaroni and cheese you’ve ever had: The Chief

 

The list goes on and on.

Walking on the beach the other night, a week after arriving, we realized we’d entered a situation we couldn’t divvy up because we didn’t know up from down and neither of us was a clear choice. The playing field was level but we were both third string players sitting on the bench.

And so, our first few days were a little tense.

 

 

 

 

In all the excitement of saying “Yes” and packing and planning, I’d never assumed we be anything other than in-sync and getting along perfectly. I thought instead of my go-to image: tanned to perfection, hand in hand, sunset. When we landed at 11 pm after 24 hours of travel with a mere intersection for the address of our accommodations, no building name, nothing, that vision started to fade. We were in a busy city, loud and noisy and diesel filled at 9,000+ feet and I was still recovering from a nasty cough. Our Spanish was rusty, to say the least, and the unfamiliar felt more ominous than exciting. Neither one of us was a pro and the awkward You Lead, No I Lead, No Lou Lead back and forth was a dance filled with stepped on toes rather than a graceful flow. We were out of sync.

 

 

 

 

One week later, pieces of my vision of us started to come together. Walking home from a beachfront dinner, hand in hand, mainly burnt but slightly tanned, just after sunset, we laughed as we realized how a new situation had so thrown us for a loop. The “us” who’s consistently been in uncomfortable situations, the “us” that has typically handled them well, the “us” who had traveled, but as it turned out not really traveled together, the “us” who were handed a swift dose of reality. We’ve always been the other person’s tour guide in the unfamiliar, an expert local to share the inside scoop with the one we love. Before an overwhelming unknown to us both was infrequent and in a familiar landscape, it was an opportunity to explore but these opportunities were less often and the valued outside input of a trusted confidant was almost always available. Alone together in another country, our comfort was taken away. For two accustomed to discomfort, it sure made us wiggle.

Thank goodness.

 

 

 

 

We can look back and laugh at the tension produced, the opposite ways we travel, the new circumstances of traveling with a love, not alone and the togetherness we’ve again found. I think now, we’ve hit our strolling stride. It may have taken some trip-ups to find it but find it we did.

Cheers to the new, to the levels of uncomfortable we don’t know until they find us and to working through it as best we can to find the joy in the unknown. Cheers to learning your partner and yourself and to sharing the not so perfect but perfectly human moments together.

Cheers, to travel.

Until next week…