Thoughts Alluded to Travel (Part 2)

December 2, 2008

by Suzan Abrams

Leaving my partner is so hard. It never gets easier. Sometimes just one hour into a journey up north Belfast for the day and I am strangely teary-eyed. We are so close.
He hates flying and stays happy where he is with occasional regional or European trips.
We are both writers but couldn't be more different.
I am blessed and fortunate that he understands my desire for and need to travel. That is how much of the hard-core traveller I am.
In my life, I am destined to be always missing someone...either a few good friends or my partner, depending where I am at any given moment.
It's not so bad now because I have been back and forth from different continents a few times and I've come back refreshed, invigorated and with some new project up my sleeve.
Everytime I cross the oceans and return safely to my Dublin flat, I feel I have been reborn.
To live in the moment is always complicated because you embrace many things all at once. You can't get enough of anything and are constantly aware of life's fragility.
It's easier to stay a pessimist because a pessimist would scornfully dismiss many opportunities with cynicism and not think twice about adventures or challenges.
I also feel blessed that I live in a good time... a time of the worldwide web and cell phones. I can't imagine how it was for my parents in Malaysia and my aunts, uncles and grandparents in the Punjab and in Kerala, India who once-upon-a-time had to leave families and beloved communities behind and travel to distant lands to work.
The sacrifices made by parents and grandparents turn sacred as one gets older.