The Faroe Ferry
September 16, 2021 Filed under Introspection, Stress
The trip to the Faroe Islands from Iceland only takes a day.
I had enough time to wander around the boat and admire the misty sea, eat a few snacks by the window, and then retreat to my tiny room for a nap. In the late evening I woke up and spent some time reading a fanciful local description of the islands I would soon be visiting, and chatting with friends. It was late afternoon back in California.
Amber and I started talking about romantic adventures, and my current situation. The months of riding had worked their physiological magic and I was feeling optimistic about the future, but the realization back in Iceland that I was too obsessed with past baggage was still knocking around my inner landscape, and sometimes crashing into unexpected feelings of betrayal from the sudden end of my relationship last year. I’d known those feelings were in me, but I never thought they were strong enough to linger this way.
I described all this to Amber, and asked her if I was doing the right thing by traveling so much.
I think it takes a great deal of courage to go out on your own. Most of us are programmed to always seek companionship, for better or worse, and I think one of the things adults can do – if they want to – is undo some of that programming.
Agreed! I’m glad for that programming though. I mean, if we didn’t want to be with others generally we’d make pretty bad communities. And with people who like being alone, they still need someone to love, even if it’s just a cat.
Well in your case, you have this current of wanderlust that runs through you, and I think you need someone who can be your home base, but will encourage you in your travels. Maybe go with you when she can, and support you from afar when she can’t.
I don’t think it needs to be mutually exclusive — all home, or all wandering. I think you can have both, and that person is out there for you.
Yeah. I don’t know what came first — the de-programming or the wanderlust. I think I was just unlucky enough to meet several people in a row that I didn’t work with long-term, in some way that was subtle and took time to uncover. That kind of wore me out.
So I felt compelled to “take a break” from romance, and that’s when the de-programming started. It was honestly kind of a surprise. I didn’t think there was anything to gain from being single any longer than I absolutely had to be.
I remember thinking that way. It took me a while to cross that line.
If there’s one thing you have to learn from long trips – either before, or during them – it’s that being alone isn’t scary.
But in romance, it’s very hard to make that discovery, or to really believe in it, because it’s too easy to equate “being wrecked over the last breakup” with “what it’s like being single”.
It takes time to feel the difference. And then there’s the whole “waiting for Mr/Mrs Right” thing… The belief that being happily single is really only desirable because it’s a stepping stone to starting the next relationship. If you run your single life that way – like a journey with an “exit” sign over the destination – there’s a lot you miss.
I spent quite a while telling Amber the details of last year’s breakup, and muttering about it, which surprised me. It had been nine months ago, and I’d been dating other people for six of those nine months. Wasn’t I supposed to be letting go of baggage? It was probably an ego thing. It usually is… Maybe some insight would come to me as I rode around the islands.
Amber signed off to start a work meeting. I said hello to a few nephews and sent a photo of the misty sea to my parents. Then, slowly, the mist began to clear and the television on the cafeteria wall showed a blob approaching from the south. The Faroe islands were near.