What's the Dilly-o?

July 21, 2009

Well, you may ask yourself "Who planted this idea in her head?!" as my grandmother so happily (not) asked my mother. I am quite sure it all began over a year ago from meeting Mike Z who backpacked some of the world for 6 months previous to my meeting him. Somehow as our relationship progressed, along the way we decided we would backpack South America together. When that relationship ended, and S. America was no longer the plan, I kept in mind that I would still do the trip post-finishing grad school. So in Fall 2008 I met a friend, Leslie, through my job at Suffolk University. She and I planned to travel together, along with a girl named Sara from travbuddy.com (an awesome site for all things travel related), but then that too did not work out. Fast forward to February 2009, my Mom and I traveled to Hawaii together and with much anxiety and whatever else, I decided I DID NOT want to backpack and instead look for a job and move away.
Then in June 2009, after applying for about 80 jobs thus far, I started to re-visit the South America idea mainly due to reading a friend's travel blog, along with seeing her amazing pictures, an e-mail including a link to best travel quotes (thanks Amanda!), countless "Should I/Shouldn't I" conversations with friends, and some intense soul searching. I started to realize I really did want to have this as a life experience and if I did get a job with the government (as I was applying for), it would be tough to leave a good gig in the beginning of my career. So it was basically YES I'm going, NO I'm not, and then..YES I am! I figure I'm entitled to change my mind at the age of 24. And as a female :)

So, I again posted on travbuddy.com that I was interested in finding some travel buddies to backpack South America with in Fall 2009. Pretty quickly, a young lady named Teja from Slovenia (if you know me, you probably know I'm awful with geography, so yes, I had to pull up a map to see where this was in Europe!) sent me a message expressing her similar travel interests. From there, a little online friendship began to materialize. After a few travbuddy messages, branching off to facebook messages and chats, leading to g-mail chats, we started to get to know one another.

Of course, we quickly covered the most important questions for travel buddies: Age, time frame, do you drink (yes, socially), use drugs (no), and of course two of the most important "partner in travel" questions: Will you be single and do you like to dance?! Yes and yes. Score!! A travel buddy has been born! :)

There's Teja! So she is 23, from Slovenia, in the process of finishing up University and looking for a big adventure! After about a week or two of chatting for hours, emailing back and forth several times each day, and continually getting each other really psyched up for the trip, I gave it some serious thought and decided I definitely wanted to do this!

BUT not before I had to break the news to Mom, Dad, and Grammy Laura. Mom basically already knew since we live together, so she had some preparation. Telling my Grandmother and father was like going under the Becker firing squad...NOT my favorite memory in life. It included a series of comments such as "NICE thing to do with your master's degree MELANIE!" "Melanie, I hoped for better for you" "You're going to go to some disease ridden country!" "Why don't you just go travel to the Middle East to the war?!?!" "As if you haven't done ENOUGH traveling!" (Feel free to envision shouting (over the phone), flushed cheeks, awkward silences.. the works! So clearly, it went very smoothly.

I wanted to be honest with them, I didn't want to lie (and how could I possibly keep up a ridiculous lie for 4 months?!), and I knew I needed to share this with my family before deciding. A little while after finishing up both very wonderful phone conversations, after the emotions calmed down a little, I felt very calm and like a weight was lifted off my shoulders. I guess that's what it feels like when you're true to yourself. I then knew the hardest part was over!

As Janis Joplin said: "Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got."