Flightster

Thailand, Travel Neuroses & Tiny, Stupid Screwdrivers

• by Colin Wright
• on August 31st, 2010
• 3 Comments

I leave for Thailand in 48 hours.

Believe it or not, this isn’t something I’ve thought very hard about. I had to look up my ticket receipt to see what time my flight was leaving. It’s been the event that all of my recent plans have revolved around while at the same time occupying little to no space at the forefront of my mind.

Instead, a million little concerns have flooded my conscious hours, taking up the time I had initially scheduled to plan. Think through things. Acknowledge the upcoming change. The MASSIVE change in my lifestyle.

But instead here I am, wondering if I’ll be able to find the correct (tiny, stupid) screwdriver so that I can open up my laptop and upgrade the hard drive sometime tomorrow. I’m looking forward to a casual date night with a gal I met a few days ago. I’m figuring out how I’m going to deposit these checks I just got from a client I met up with earlier today.

Did I eat too many delicious oatmeal cookies? Will this sunburn stop peeling soon? What am I going to get rid of before leaving?

BOOM! There it is! It’s subtle, but it’s an indication that somewhere in the swirly mental abyss that my mind becomes during these interim stops I’m thinking about the future. I’m planning ahead and preparing and being responsible. All is not lost.

Looking at all the concerns, they all point back to the bigger issue: I’m leaving everything I know again and I have no idea what I’ll find on the other side. When I get off that plane, it will be two days later than when I boarded, and who the hells knows what will have happened in the world in between? The planet could detonate and I would be the last to know.

And the only suggestion that I’m at all concerned about this evident by looking at the small indicators.

I’m worrying over the screwdriver because if I’m not able to crack this badboy open soon, I’ll be stuck flying with my laptop AND a spare hard drive, which is not something I’d like to explain at customs.

I’m setting aside extra time for dating because I know that I’ll be hopping on a plane and then there won’t be any more dates for a while (and maybe not ever again with this particular girl).

I won’t be able to do anything with the checks as soon as I’m overseas.

I may not be able to work out regularly once I’m on the road.

Sunburns (especially peeling ones) can turn an otherwise neutral flight into a torturous undertaking.

If I don’t get back down to 50 items now, it might be difficult to do so once I’ve taken off.

Travel is fun and breezy and fancy free and I enjoy everything about it, but I do worry; just not in obvious ways. I don’t focus on the big picture because sometimes, well, that’s just too much to deal with while also trying to cope with the present, especially when that change is consistent and drastic.

I like to look at it as breaking a big problem into smaller, more manageable problems. Travel itself is a privilege, not something to be feared, but the consequences of long-term travel are a different story.

I fear them, I love them, and I’m pretty sure if I thought about them too often I’d never get anything else done.

But this is why travel is so necessary! It forces one to embrace fear, to find its weakness and pulverize it into little pieces! Everyone has a different weapon against this roadblock, and this just happens to be mine.

I know people who don’t even buy their ticket until the day they’re set to leave. Others plan meticulously in order to assuage their fears; having everything logged and filed and put into a spreadsheet makes them feel more in control of the situation. Still others obsess over their equipment or their traveling companions or figure out all they can about the place they’re going in order to set their minds at ease.

Whatever floats your boat, so long as it gets you sailing, is what I say. Traveling neurotically is far superior to never traveling, and even if I’m unaccustomed to the kind of mental blockage that I get when a trip is quickly approaching, I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

It’s become a routine of sorts. Everyone I talk to asks me ‘How excited are you!? Thailand! Amazing!’ and then they tell their story. I listen and I learn. I know it won’t all really lock in until I set my feet on the Thai soil, awkwardly shop in a Thai grocery store, try to convey that I’m looking for a place to live to a stranger who has no idea why I’m talking to him.

The buildup is as important in its own way as the plane touching down and exchange of currency. It sets me up for…well, everything that I’ve had happen so far.

It’s been amazing, and it will continue to be so. I can’t wait for the next step.

But first, where’s that damn screwdriver?

Colin Wright

Colin Wright is a minimalist, branding expert and serial entrepreneur. While running his blog Exile Lifestyle ,his branding studio Colin Is My Name and his e-publishing business ebookling. Colin travels the world (moving to a new country every 4 months), meeting up with amazing people, giving talks (to audiences ranging from tech industry professionals to college students to Catholic school girls) and hunting down new and interesting experiences.