Adventuring

When I was twenty-two I packed my Earth Shoes(tm)--no, really--and two pairs of jeans, a nightshirt and a toothbrush, and went to Europe. I thought I was going to England, France, and Greece for a total of six weeks, but while I was there I sold my first book, had Fawcett send the contracts and the money to me in England, and stayed for another five months. It was grand. But I still remember the loneliness and anxiety of heading off down the hallway at International Departures at JFK Airport toward my plane. I'd never really travelled by myself (barring one flight to LA when I was 14, nursemaided by the flight attendants and picked up at the other end of the trip by my aunt), let alone travelled to places where I didn't really speak the language. In the end, that trip was the making of me: I learned more French and Spanish, a little Greek, worked as a chambermaid and a typist, made friends, went to Morocco and Spain as well as France and Greece, had adventures, had to think fast. It was swell.

Why think about this now? Sarcasm Girl is leaving tonight for two and a half weeks to visit her buddy Amanda in Indiana, thence to NYC to pick her sister up from the camp bus, thence to Pennsylvania to visit her grandparents, then home again, home again, jiggity jig. Given her tendency toward anxiety and her lack of fondness for air travel, this is a pretty brave thing for her to do, but the kid is paying for her trip herself and is very excited about it. Which also means that she's been going through all sorts of anxiety highs and lows in the last couple days, just when she has a lot of things to do--getting her classes squared away at CCSF, packing, opening the bank accounts, all that jazz. So it's been pretty fraught around here. Still, I'm remembering myself at 22 walking off for my first solo adventure, and hoping the trip is the making of the girl the same way mine was of me.