Travel?

Duane and i had an interesting experience on Saturday. 

He'd gotten one of those things in the mail promising airline tickets and hotel stay (and food, too), if we sat thru a 90 minute presentation.  I don't usually go for these things, but we've never done one before.  So we went.

It actually was a really great opportunity for travel.  I told him his parents should have come instead of us.  They like to travel and do quite a lot of it.  They've taken an Alaskan cruise and gone to Italy and Ireland.  

But travel is really not in our future.  I have a difficult enough time with our 2 day trip to OC every week.  I've wondered what will happen when there is an important funeral back east - at this point i can't imagine going.  

Still, at the end of the presentation the gentleman (salesman) offered what was really quite a good deal.  I sent him away so i could talk to Duane about it.  I asked if he would like to travel, if i'm holding him back, if i should try harder.  He kind of laughed and said, "I'm actually stressing because we have to take this free trip in the next year."  I laughed and laughed at that, and then we laughed together.  No, i'm not holding Duane back.

Part of me would like to travel, but the fact is even before i became so limited i wasn't much of a traveling person.  Yes, i have wanted to go to England - but i wanted to LIVE there, not just visit.  I wouldn't mind going back to Portland, or Montana/Wyoming/Colorado, or visit New England during the Fall, or just bop around the South - i've lots of memories there i wouldn't mind revisiting.  But i really can't do that these days, and i am rather a homebody person.  The truth is, i wouldn't want to visit those places, i'd want to live there, and i can only live one place at a time!

The gentleman could see early on that he probably wasn't going to get anywhere with us and didn't put on a lot of pressure.  He did say he feels sorry for us.  He told us that he lives in a million dollar house in Irvine and drives a Lexus, but that traveling is what makes life worth living for him and we can't imagine what we are missing.  Although he then admitted that if we don't desire to travel then we really aren't missing anything.

The fact is, we feel sorry for him.  That he has all those things (and is stuck in Irvine) but lives to travel is sad to us.  There are a lot of people in the world who endure, hang on, survive until they can escape from their every-day life with a week or two of vacation.  We are quite happy with our every-day life and have no need to escape.  Really, why would i want to spend a weekend in Arrowhead or in Yosemite when i can have the beauty of the mountains here at home and the comfort, too?  I can see some benefit from travel, but i also see a lot of benefit from being happy at home.  

My family traveled a lot when i was a kid.  It wasn't bad, but i kind of feel like i've left bits and pieces of me all over the country, and i have a longing for many things that i can't have all at once, anyway.

I've very intense, poignant memories of many things from my past.  Some times i see or remember something that brings these memories back so clearly in my mind that i can almost cut myself with their sharpness. 

One such memory is of the dogwood and redbud looking just like this in the Spring in Tennessee and Kentucky.  I don't know why it makes me ache so, but it does.

Another is of waiting for the bus along one road that looked just like this when i was seven.  Those colors and the memory also makes me ache.  I could go on and on with such memories, and they are precious to me, but i could never relate them to another person in such a way that would impart 1/100th of their import, meaning, and how heartrending they are to me.  

So, the very good thing that came out of this was that Duane and i enjoyed a day trip together on Saturday, and had a good meal together at a nice place after the meeting.  And we found, again, how compatible we are in that neither of us is deeply longing for something but unable to do it because of my limitations.

Frankly, we probably should have taken the very last (cheapest and least time-involved) offer because it was transferable.  We could have given it to Duane's parents or mine, or one of our siblings.  If we were able to travel in the future then we could use it too.  (One week a year for life.)  But on the other hand, our bank account really can't handle a hit on it right now.

And, i don't ever, ever want to attend such a thing again.  Not even for the freebies offered.  I don't like sitting thru something like this knowing i've no intention of buying.  (Yes, many, many years ago i'd sat in some of these with hubby #1.  I didn't like them then.)  Duane and i had not done this before.  I'm not regretting it, but i definitely don't want to do it again.

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