This blog post is not meant to minimize the seriousness of COVID-19 at all.
There are many people sick and many people have died from this virus and I hope the world gets their shit together and finds a way to stop it and/or cure those who already have it.
Moving on though…….
You know what this blog post IS about? Insecurities. Not even your own insecurities but the insecurities outsiders try to put on your personal travels.
There are two specific ones I want to discuss: relationships and dangers.
‘Your Man Lets You _______?’
My man doesn’t LET SHIT. I am an adult and I am not under parole. So don’t bring that ‘let’ business into my life, ever.
How many of you are in relationships and had outsiders try to cast doubt on travels you or your significant other is about to embark on? Many I bet.
I travel a lot, it was something my boyfriend of four years was made aware of from the beginning. In fact, the day after our first date – I flew to St. Maarten. I made it very clear that travel is a priority in my life and that he either can come along for the ride or stay on the ground and far away from me. Luckily, he’s awesome and supports my travel habits and also participates in some of them too.
I’m very aware that he’s probably gotten some snarky comments about ‘letting‘ me travel to New York with the girls or to the three foreign Carnivals I’ve attended since we met. But he doesn’t give into that nonsense.
There was a conversation yesterday on Twitter about ‘how would you feel about your man going on a Spring Break trip with his boys?’ (thanks Tash!) You know what my response was?
I’d be VERY sad if he didn’t let me plan it for them and get them the best deal possible. That would be upsetting. The going to Spring Break part though? No. Why would I take issue with that?
Why is it that as soon as someone attends Spring Break or Carnival or some big music festival that the presumption is they’re going to do some dumb shit? That’s not fair. If I know how to act accordingly while traveling, he should as well. I assure you, if the person is going to cheat they’ll do it in your city, at their job etc. The first nor last time won’t be on THAT one vacation.
So please stop. Stop asking people about would you let this and that, and how did you let bla bla bla. Not your relationship, not your business. Only because your previous person may have done something, or your friends man/woman did – does not make it so for everyone. Keep the comments to yourself.
‘Aren’t You Scared To Go To _______?’
Between being told I could get kidnapped traveling alone to Bali, to being warned that my boyfriend and I will be killed by the cartel going to Mexico and that my friend Lorren and I will face grave danger visiting Cartagena – there’s a plethora of examples of people projecting THEIR FEARS onto my travels.
Person ‘a’ is scared of their own shadow and person ‘b’ is traveling somewhere that person ‘a’ wouldn’t dare venture to. So now person ‘a’ tells person ‘b’ about all the ways they could die going to that place.
Story of my damn life.
My mom tells me not to be so hard on people because they are just telling you to be safe and wishing good for you. Okay but, do you think I’m some frivolous and naive jackass that just travels wherever with no previous research? That’s how I take those comments. You think I’m an unprepared child. I read zero travel advisories apparently.
For every trip I do, I assure you months of reading went into it. I do a lot of overnight shifts and in those 13hrs, there’s not much else to do but to read things and my reading consists of planning my next trip(s).
With the current COVID-19 situation, I know there is a lot of fear-mongering going on. Is some of it valid? Probably. Does that mean I’m going to stop enjoying my favourite thing in the world? HELL NO.
I won’t put myself into any imminent danger (no Wuhan for me) – but I also still book trips. I’m going to still travel and enjoy myself because life is too damn short to be scared of stuff. If I die, I may as well do it in South Beach instead of Woodbine Beach.
People project their own fears onto you even when there isn’t civil unrest or pandemics floating around. Have you ever planned a trip solo? Bet some scaredy cat told you that you’re crazy and THEY ‘could never‘ do that. You know those ones.
Or when you travel to places that aren’t just all-inclusive resorts. Tell people you stay in AirBnB’s off a resort and they sometimes look at you like a martian. It is inconceivable to them that people take such ‘RISKS’ when they travel. Big quotation marks around that risks thing because my sarcasm is at a peak.
I planned and researched my trip to Turkey to get my teeth done extensively. Going to a foreign country alone to get a medical procedure done probably doesn’t cross too many people’s minds. It crossed mine, a long time before I acted on it.
About two weeks before the trip (that had been paid for, confirmed etc) I got a DM from a girl telling me that her friend went to some OTHER country and her teeth weren’t done well. So, not even the same clinic as me and not even the same country. Cool.
I wondered at that moment, what do people expect you to do with that information? Should I be like ‘omg, really? you know, let me cancel my entire trip and the procedure because YOUR friend went somewhere else and it went badly.‘ That seems like the only appropriate response. Because you are choosing to message someone two weeks before a trip to tell them a scary story. You must want me to cancel the whole thing. That’s how I’m taking it.
Obviously I didn’t cancel.
Airplane crashes happen, I don’t see people choosing to stop flying. It’s all a circle of projection and I need those who do it to STOP and those who are being projected on to IGNORE.
This post went on for longer than anticipated and I probably sound like a crazy person just ranting. But I am truly sick and tired of everyone else opinion on something they’re not paying for. If you paid for my trip, then you might have some say in it. Your fears aren’t other peoples fears. Whether in relationships or not, still go on the damn trip. If you did your research and chose well for a safe destination for you, then go take the damn trip.
Life is too short to be scared.
- Mirna