Three things you learn about traveling with your S.O
So many of our friends and family members were surprised that David and I decided to leave the island we called home, the country we are citizens of, and the jobs we had. Well it wasn’t easy. I will be open and honest with you, I took the trip because I fell into a phase of depression: I got rejected from two of the graduate schools I applied for, I had a job that I was completely unhappy with and fell into an unhappy cycle. You may ask why I didn’t quit my job well, I initially took the job for the same reasons most college graduates do: WE NEED MONEY! When David and I decided to go on this month long adventure, we had only been dating for ONE MONTH! I know, call us crazy! We bought the tickets 6 months in advance (MAJOR MONEY SAVER) and slowly paid off our other expenses (Great way to double as a credit builder). The days couldn’t come sooner, we planned and planned and it felt like we were still missing things. I made an full on itinerary down to every 30 minutes and how long it would take us to walk from point A to point B (Do not do this! Ill explain later) how much money we would spend every day, how much safe money we needed to have, what to pack, what we didn’t really need, ect. I took the responsibility for Japan simply because I speak Japanese and I have been to Japan before. David took over Thailand because he’s been there and has family who he could contact if anything went wrong (nothing bad happened J). Below I have complied a list of my favorite things about traveling with your SO. I hope these advice help you decide to take that leap of faith like we did.
1. Traveling with your SO can be a gamble BUT could be worth it in the long run.
Since we were still new to our relationship, we both were secretly worried about our relationship coming to an end before the trip happened or the trip being the only good thing to have come out of our relationship, neither of these options happened but, what did happen was the bond we made and we did agree to still go on the trip as JUST FRIENDS (I know, theres no such things as just friends with ex’s but I’ll explain later). Of course, I would get annoyed at David and want to just leave him on the trains in Tokyo but, I didn’t LOL. And I know for a fact that the feeling was mutual. But that’s the first thing I learned. I learned that sometimes you’re stuck with someone you don’t necessarily want to be with at the moment but, if you give it time, things can go back to normal. In our case, we went back to loving each other. When we came back we were afraid that we hit that highest peak of our relationship that we’d come back to a dull relationship but, we actually came back a lot stronger. We learned so much from each other. Obviously in this picture, we both learned that we got our Owls and were notified that we were BOTH accepted into Hogwarts! GO GYFFINDOR!!!!
2. You can learn A LOT about your SO when you’re in an unfamiliar place.
This goes for anyone, and anything. When you’re with someone in an unfamiliar place, the only thing that is familiar to you is your SO. You’re SO is the only thing that you brought back from your “normal day to day life” and whether you want to admit it or not, you will rely on them for a lot of things you think you can accomplish on your own. So what did I learn from David? LOL. I learned that we both have different styles of planning and how we deal with situations. I am a planner, I love schedules and my favorite thing to have besides my music is my planner. I cannot function without my planner ahah. David on the other hand, is very sporadic, not in a bad way but more like, he “goes with the flow.” Throughout the month of being with him EVERY SINGLE DAY IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY BREAKFAST, LUNCH, AND DINNER, I learned a lot from him. He thought me how to live in the moment, how to just soak everything in and I honestly needed it. I needed a change in my life; and that was the soul purpose of this trip: To discover more about ourselves and reevaluate our goals.
Another way to think about this situation, or just traveling with your SO is: Is your relationship ready for one of the ultimate tests, or perhaps you could ask yourself: is it time to spice it up? Of course you don’t need to travel across the globe to find out if your relationship needs some work. A road trip might do just as fine. Drive to another part of your town that you’ve never been to before. Test the limits of your relationship, it’s the best way to evaluate and gage how compatible you two are currently, its an opportunity to set goals as a couple, an opportunity to set personal goals. Our motto for our blog is to “GET LOST” this means loose yourself in the things your curious about, the things that bring excitement in your life. You never know who you truly are unless you get lost. Having a SO to share that with is something magical.
3. You’re creating memories that last.
Okay. This could be interpreted two ways: memories to last because they’re beautiful and you never want to forget them OR memories to last because it may have failed. Either way, you get a lesson learned and memories built. You have to take things in life with a grain of salt because if you don’t, everything will be bland and tasteless. There are silver linings to even the most negative events. Heres my story: I got rejected from my dream graduate school. I graduated with my Bachelors in Cellular and Molecular Biology. I did whatever a top student could: volunteered, took on leadership roles, did 4 years of internships, and had a part-time job while juggling school and family. So what happened? Nothing, the path that I THOUGHT I was cut out for didn’t turn out to be what the universe had planned for me. That wake up call of being rejected could have been taken as “wow Alyssa, you suck,” (which I did think for a little) or “This is a great time to rethink your life.” Of course the “Alyssa you suck,” came first but then I realized that rethinking my life wouldn’t have allowed me to take this amazing trip with David. I would not be where I am today and I wouldn’t be here writing this blog. So there’s my personal silver lining but our trips silver lining, we could have canceled our trip and just not go and continue down the unhappy paths we were on OR we could accept this challenge and change our perspective on life. Notice the “could haves.” Growing up my mother always mocked me “Could have, would have, should have, but didn’t!” don’t let a little worry scare you away from a trip of a lifetime. You never know when you’ll ever get the chance again. Looking at our lives now, we have made such great progresses, I switched my career from science to fitness, and David is growing as a firefighter. I couldn’t be more proud of him.
My perspective has definitely changed after this trip, and I had to change my outlook in order for my relationship to change. Our relationship was fine originally but the changes we made personally affected our relationship and elevated our love for each other. So these memories, they will last and will always be a great memory. When I get into the details of the actual trip you’ll understand what I mean.
