I’ve decided not to go to New Zealand for the moment. I think I’ll set the money aside for the trip and schedule it tentatively for next autumn, or when the fancy strikes me with a big resounding “I must go now.”
I really appreciate all of you helping me sound it out. Mona asked a good question about comparing letting New Zealand go and if it compared to when I tried to stop Nanowrimo. The difference is that when I tried to quit Nano, there remained a little bit of resentment. A lot of frustration and feeling like I was being left out of the fun, even though I was stressed I still couldn’t resign my creative mind to silence.
Letting New Zealand go felt like a rush of relief and I think, that, in and of itself was the deciding factor.
I told D one night that I was feeling ridiculous for ever letting myself get caught up feeling obligated to go, and she asked if part of my reservation stemmed from the reason: I don’t know what compelled me to want to go and therefore don’t know what my expectations are?
She hit the nail pretty close. When I first wanted to go to New Zealand I was three years into a marriage that I felt claustrophobic in. I was on my way home from Valdez and stood in the Anchorage Airport with my luggage and thought, “If I go home – I’ll never get to see New Zealand.” So I dragged my luggage to the counter and stood in line with the credit card. I didn’t plan on going home to my husband in Portland until I’d seen the South Island with my own eyes.
But I didn’t have a passport.
In the end I obviously didn’t go, but returned to my life as a housewife and a husband that for the greater part of things rarely seemed to know that I was present. If I’m totally honest with myself I can say, it wasn’t so much that I wanted to see New Zealand but that I didn’t want to go home. I didn’t want to live the life I was living and New Zealand was the furthest place on Mother Earth I could go to escape.
It’s not, then, a far leap to see how – at the height of my divorce, at the peak of court disputes and being bought out of my house – New Zealand suddenly came to the foremost part of my mind again. The furthest place I could go. While I reasoned that my favorite television show, Xena, was filmed there, and that I’d heard the skydiving was fantastic… these things alone couldn’t account for the urgency with which I wanted away from lawyers, away from the pain, away from someone telling me – they never really loved me. But knowing I once stood at an airport to escape – could I even claim I wasn’t just as guilty of lying to myself and thereby to him?
So is the reason I don’t feel driven to go because I have nothing I desperately want to run away from? Is it because I don’t feel the need to escape loving someone who neglected me? Or flee the battle over mundane inanimate objects in court when the real travesty is two people nearly killed each other with their own inability to be honest with themselves?
I do want to go to New Zealand. I do want to walk the forests, beaches and skydive – but not until I know what all my expectations are in regards to what I’ll gain emotionally or mentally from the experience. That way I can actively work to make sure I enjoy myself, rather than get there and leave disappointed because I never really knew why I wanted to be there.
With the tentative plan to go next autumn, I can leave myself open for any other adventure that comes along that I think might surpass a trip to NZ. If it’s simply escape I need, then Harley’s right, there are lots of other places to go that are less expensive.
I can’t deny the appeal of returning home. I miss Portland in a way that amazes me. I think of it almost with as much longing as I would a great lover or an old friend.
I guess for now, just being aware of the probability that I was using New Zealand as nice way to say, “I’m unhappy and I want to run away” is a good way to crack open the Bliss bubble and get real with myself.
Timothy had such a great point: Don’t hop a freight train unless you have to – or unless you REALLY want to.
So damn brilliant! I don’t have to and I don’t want to right now.
I want to go to New Zealand – BUT- I want to go when I’m truly honest with myself. I want to go when I’m whole enough and aware enough to enjoy it as much as possible.
Otherwise that’s a lot of money and a long way to fly only to discover I’m lying to myself, and that some things – you just can’t out run.
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