The ten days holiday, my way

“Yes, we can just try to do it in about ten days.”

It is a strange feeling dawning on me when I realize I AM the object of the conversation. It has been said quite a few times on Vagabonding before, how the ten days holiday can be a step towards the opening of the third eye of travel but… it just SUCKS when it applies to YOU: an ex long-term traveler bound by a life of travel to live a “normal life”. Well, researching Southeast Asian alienated youth headbanging at the rhythms of noisy, loud music is not so normal, nor it is bad. It is surely quite fun. But being required to stay put because you have to assist the students with tutorials, well, that leaves only the Easter window as a tiny possibility of a much needed foray into some sort of adventure. Because of course, I would not be content on going to Thailand, and relax on the first beach. If I went there, I’d find a more suitable position trying to chase down some Muslim rebels in the jungles around Pattani. But… can you do that in 10 days? I am afraid not. Taking long stretches of travel at a time – in my case, one year periods, more or less – is a serious problem to adjust to when you are planning another foray. Because you always want more. You NEED more. There is nothing you can do, your own cells have mutated and you are now ready to front the group of the X-Men of travel, like Wolverine, your bones are adamantium and won’t rest if not jarred against the rocks of a forgotten camping ground next to some forgotten border.
“Mmmmm….” We look at each other straight in the eyes.
“Maybe we are not going anywhere, are we?”
“No no, check that flight price, c’mon…”
“Wait! Are we going TO FLY??”
Sometimes I wish I were a simpler man, like Lynyrd Skynyrd so poetically put it. But travel, luckily, made me not. That’s why I have adamantium bones. What about you? Can you take it?