2020 and the Clarity of Travel

2019 was a whirlwind year of being away from home. Between work and personal travel, I was on a plane somewhere every month. This is not humble-bragging. Anyone can do it; most choose not to.

Some trips of note (more on these later):

• Amsterdam/Utrecht
  • A return trip to Amsterdam for me and my really good friend, Mr. P (anonymity requested), coupled with a mini reunion in Utrecht to see my friend, Jerold, who I met in Seville in 2018.
• Thailand/Cambodia
  • This trip was planned around the 2019 IWF World Weightlifting Championships (Worlds) in Pattaya City with some of my really good friends I met through weightlifting family.
• Mexico City
  • This was quite the trip. I booked my flight 3pm Friday to leave 10am the following day for Thanksgiving week. Turns out a lot of people had the same idea. I might have to keep planning a trip that week.

The July 2020 trip that should’ve been: MadCool Festival in Madrid with a short trip to Ibiza. A trip to hang with Juliano, another friend I met in Seville. There is a bit of an overlap in our music tastes so this trip would’ve been a great reunion. But alas, COVID-19 struck in our early days of planning. We bought festival tickets ahead of the deadline with the expectation that it would be cancelled.

It was bittersweet to exchange jabs of “we should be in Madrid right now” with Juliano earlier this month, but I’ve accepted that the idea of meeting up with another friend from my Seville trip was enough to fill my soul. Postponement isn’t a bad thing; it’s just another thing to look forward to.

A week ago another friend from that Seville trip (a theme here) added an instagram story post about a beach without comment or location tags. I quickly asked Kelly where she was.

“Tulum,” she replies. I developed an itch. After two very short exchanges with Kelly I planned a trip to Tulum.

Pandemic-be-damned I booked my flights while on the phone with my mother to lessen her worry. The itch was scratched.

I leave in 9 days.