Every time I filled out the passport section of a visa application form, or if I was purchasing an international airline ticket, the date 10 February 2015 felt like it was so far away, it would never actually arrive.
The past 10 years have been a whirlwind. Who would have thought that I’d need you for so much more than that spring break in the Bahamas when I was just 17. I didn’t realize your importance or value then (you’ve been on more adventures with me than my necklace has) nor did I realize that you were my key to the world, but hell – a couple of years later, and I never wanted you out of my sight.
I left home at 19 to study in Italy, and you were practically a virgin then — save that cheeky trip to the Bahamas in 2005. (We all have a couple of cheeky moments in life, don’t worry.) One stamp across your 26 pages, and a student visa — which felt like the newspaper pages underneath my fingers, like the ink will rub off — smack on page 10. You were so fresh and new then, a brand new book with nothing but adventures to fill the pages.
Studies in Italy led to that trip around Europe, when I had no idea what the hell I was doing from start to finish aside from eating and drinking my weight in food. (Photo evidence supports such statements.) In those seven months alone, you were tattooed with so many marks from so many different countries: Hungary, Switzerland, England, the Czech, France. There was that missed flight to Greece, and then there was that “Oh shit I think I forgot to actually hit the confirm button!” moment when trying to check in for that flight to Ireland. Damn, how amateur we were then. (Okay, fine, sometimes I can be a little bit careless a lot of the time.)
Then there was that quick trip we took to Mexico City, Mexico, for a reporting assignment, when we ran around town chasing down interviews without any fear of all those kidnapping warnings.
And how could we forget that summer spent living in China? I remember waiting with my face pressed up against the car window as we left the main airport in Beijing, expecting to see a night sky spinning with neon lights, but it was morning, and all we could see was nothing. It was a summer spent in a Beijing smog. But then there was that time we went to some random island — Putuoshan — to see the solar eclipse, where I met people who call themselves “eclipse chasers”. It was some time after sun rise, and I remember everything went quiet. No insects were chirping, no birds singing, nothing. Just total darkness in the middle of the morning.
And there was my first hike with a couple of Kiwis through the Tiger Leaping Gorge in the country’s Yunnan province. It was the first time in my life I wasn’t staring up at the clouds; instead, I was walking through them (in a pair of hand-me-down Tiva sandals left behind by some German backpacker), watching them roll by at my eye level and feeling their chill as they settled down on my skin.
There was that weird little turn of events, too, where we told our family back home we were taking a small detour to Australia. Australia was no detour from the States; it was a deliberate move, one that was more unpredictable than almost anything I’ve ever done. The evening of my flight, I sat at the airport gate, and I was terrified. I clutched you so firmly in my grip, it was like you were my life support. I disregarded my phone bill and called Ariel. “I’m going to throw up,” I told her. “These people around me right now, they have don’t have accents like mine. They have different one. I was supposed to be going home. What am I doing?”
Home. We’ve been safe and sound the past seven months, and that’s a great thing. It’s refreshing. It feels different, almost like we never even left, which is strange, but still —it feels good. I feel happy, and you’ve gotten a well-deserved break (though we did jet set to Mexico for a luxurious getaway to send you out on one last trip).
Bryna
February 3, 2015 at 11:00 pm
My passport is jealous of your passport! Mine is up for renewal too but it hasn’t gone through as many amazing looking adventures as yours! As an aside, it makes me sad when the immigration officers don’t put a stamp in my passport. Or if they put stamps on top of another stamp. Maybe it’s just a me thing!
Alexandra
February 4, 2015 at 9:09 am
Ha, well mine is pretty stagnant as of late, but I expect that will be changing soon! And you’ll get there! Every little step leads to something bigger! And not getting the stamp doesn’t bother me as much as when they put stamps on top of one another. I like being able to read them all! Good luck on your future adventures. Maybe we will cross paths somewhere!
Me
February 4, 2015 at 1:50 pm
Another amazing article!!
Ps. I’m so jealous you can get European stamps.
Alexandra
February 4, 2015 at 1:52 pm
thank you, lydia! yeah, i’m lucky, but you can live all over Europe. that’s better than a stamp