I’m so glad January is over. I was really looking forward to 2014. 2013 was pretty rough for me. I experienced some great things last year, but the lows were just as low as the highs were high. At the end of 2013 I felt like I was finally in a good space. Work was going well, I was settled in, I’d made some friends, progress on every front. The first couple weeks of 2014 were seemingly good as well. I was back in my new home after time with family at the holidays and ready to keep progressing. Then I hit some bumps at work, felt pretty alone, and then my grandfather died.
It seemed so unfair. I’d spent years at sea, but now I am back. I’m going home every month; calling more often. How could he be gone? I needed to tell him that I found the answer to a question he asked me at Christmas. I had a question for him about something he told me over Thanksgiving. I’d looked at tours to take him on this spring when he would come to see my new city. Now none of those would happen. And I don’t know what to do.
I spent a week being incredibly sad. Like cry-myself-to-sleep-every-night sad. I held it together socially for the most part except for when I started to talk about it. Then one day I realized I hadn’t cried at all and somehow that made me feel worse. I want to be really sad. Someone that mattered a great deal to me is now gone; I’ve made all of the memories I’m going to make with him. I want to be sad! I don’t want to go back to life as usual, because life is unusual now.
It made me question all of my life choices. Was I wrong to travel so much? Wrong to move away? At the time I thought I was chasing my dreams, but in the chase I left behind the most important pieces of my life. I wouldn’t be who I am today without the travel, and yet I wouldn’t even exist without my family. So what do I do now with this void in my heart and a list of unfulfilled dreams in my head?
Part of me wants to move back to my hometown, be close to those I love, and know that nothing I would find out in the world would trump that time. Part of me wants to run away. Go back to sea. Backpack around Europe. RV though the National Parks. Be alone and know that everything I need is in my backpack. But in reality, I just keep living. I keep going to work. Keep paying my rent. Spend time with friends. Call my grandma. Drive to Pennsylvania every month. Have new adventures. Feel the pain. Cry the tears. Get lost – geographically and emotionally.
Getting lost is something my grandfather rarely did. He was a human GPS. I don’t think there was a place I traveled in the state that he didn’t know a faster route to get me there. Perhaps my explorer’s heart came from him. I now know I got my love of maps from him – one hangs behind me as I write this. And maybe it was his sense of direction in me that got me back to the ship on time everyday despite my wanderings through towns, down trails, and up mountains.
So for now I keep exploring – carrying a piece of him with me on every adventure. There is still pain. Still tears. Still a void. Still so many questions. But there is also life. He lived his well. Now I try to do the same.
2 thoughts on “Getting Lost”
Very touching Val. Raw and human. He will be part of every vision you have for your future.
This is so perfect. I wish I had met your grandpa. Thanks for writing about him. Let's get together soon. I am so thankful you are part of my community here in DC.