Baggage Theory

No one gets to thirty without some baggage.  Even those among us who have had less than a thousand first dates.

I've narrowed my philosophy on this one this:

I'm looking for someone who has carry on baggage, not checked.

I've traveled quite a bit so the analogy speaks to that experience.
Carry on baggage means:
you know how to travel light. Work with what you've got.  You're willing to do laundry instead of carry extra clothes. You prefer to fly through the airport, only arriving an hour before your flight, and know how to get through security without setting off a metal detector.

Checked baggage means:
You favor stuff over the mobility to do stuff.  You are potentially inexperienced, taking everything with you, instead of making do and letting go. You have to spend lots of time waiting both to check and retrieve your stuff.

I'm divorced.  That's a phrase I don't say often.  I'm not embarrassed by it.  I'm not proud of it.  But it honestly doesn't come up often in my life.  I usually make a point of mentioning it to people I'm dating/friends at some point.  It has to be a conscientious mention because it never comes up otherwise. He's not in my life, at all.  That's not hyperbole.  When I left, after the paperwork was done, the house was sold, the things divided, I left. I believe when you split from someone, there's usually a very good reason.  I had my reasons.  I still believe they were the right ones, that I was justified. Few people get to know the whole story.

I'm proud of the fact that my baggage is carry on. Maybe it's because I've evolved as I've traveled.  I take less stuff.  I won't break my back to have an extra change of clothes.  I know that if I forget my ________ (toothbrush, flip flops, etc) I can buy them there.  I know it's easier to buy liquids like shampoo wherever I'm going. I like not waiting in line to hand over my bag only to worry if it will show up at the same place and at the same time that I do. I like flinging my bag on my back and being boat/bus/hike ready.  All of that is true when I travel.  Most of it is also true for my emotional baggage.  I like that I'm not being crushed under the weight of past hurts. I feel that I've learned from past mistakes, I acknowledge their role in shaping who I am now, and importantly who I date now..

I usually say that I got out of a marriage about as well as anyone could. No kids, we sold or split the rest of the "things" we had together.  I went to see a psychiatrist even when he wouldn't.  I made peace with my decisions, let myself off the hook for some of the bad ones, resolved to make fewer bad ones in the future and enjoy my life.

Right now, most of my dates are from online sites.  For better or worse, that means I can filter who I date with a simple check box.  While there currently isn't a "beard" or "no beard" box to check, I do filter out men with kids.  Kids is a level of baggage that some with staff and ex's and and and  . . . .WHOA. I don't even know if I want my own yet but I'm sure that at this point, I don't want someone else's.  They may be great kids (because doesn't everyone think their own kids are great?) but they come with an ex-wife or ex-gf who is permanently attached to them.

I'll have you know I had some great visuals, but for the second post in a row, I can't upload pictures again!  ARGH, damn you Blogger!  --UPDATE: HAH! I found a work around!

My history with history

I am really looking forward to the history of Vietnam, and Cambodia.  Both the Ancient and the US-related. I've always been interested in and fascinated by history.  The US educational system really falls short by barely teaching kids US history (I never had a class that got past WWII until college), let alone any foreign history. I love to learn it as I travel.  I've thought maybe its because Seattle, though a fantastic city with some interesting stories, is a new city. The whole of the west coast is relative to the rest of the US and the rest of the world.

I went to Washington DC, Virginia, Philadelphia and marveled at the Civil War sights, Liberty Hall and most of the major Washington DC monuments. It was old compared to Seattle.  I felt like I could see the start of the United States. 

The White House and Washington Monument

In 2004 I traveled to London and across France from Normandy to the German border and back. That's old.  Even the smallest towns had churches that were over two hundred years old. The wars, kingdoms, the plague. They'd all left indelible marks on the land and the poeple and helped to form and change the cities and their structure. I couldn't get over the way many of the buildings, especially the churches, had been burned bombed and rebuilt.  You could see the evidence.

A church in Strausbourg, not a big town but a big old church.

Guatemala was next in 2007. I didn't get to the Mayan ruins in the eastern half of the country, but I will.  Even in the western half one can learn about and see their influence.

Ruins at Tikal

2009 brought a trip to Italy and of course Rome. I toured the Colliseum slack jawed.  It's one of the few guided tours I've even gone on.  The clarity with which you could see into the past, the understanding that so much of western culture is shaped by what happened there, made it extraordinary.  I walked through the senate knowing that government proceedings happened over 200 years ago.

The Colliseum

For me, it doesn't get old (ba dum ching!).  I can't say I knew much of anything about Indonesia and it's history before I moved there and only slightly more about Spain.  By living in these countries and traveling from them I learn.  I find points of pride, even as I am a foreigner on a short residence, about the people and their history.  The struggles they fought and battles they won.  The ebb and flow of their power and kingdoms. I share what I learn with anyone who had two minutes and a slight interest. There's still so much I don't know about Indonesia that it would probably fill a small ilbrary, but I'm still working on it.  And adding Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia and other Asian countries along the way.

A Vietnam observation

My mom made an interesting observation last weekend before I left Jakarta for Han oi.  As the mother of a 29 year old (I'll let you ballpark her generation) she has a very different relationship with Vietnam that I do.  She is familiar with the names of most of the towns I'm planning to visit.  DaNang, Saigon (Ho Chi minh City), Han oi, Da Lat, My Lai (site of a massacre), the Gulf of Tonkin, Halong bay and the Mekong.  These are all names that were in the news for years while the Vietnam War drug on. 

Her generation was affected by this war.  She knew people her age that went and fought.  Some came back mentally and physically beyond repair.  Others, as is the case in war, didn't come back.  A good number of others stayed in Asia, finding life easier for a multitude of reason or simple because they couldn't readjust back home.  I know I have a stereotype of the now aging baby boomer who stayed here, took a local wife and made a family in Vietnam, the Phillipines, Thailand, maybe even Indonesia.

Mom may not know right off where these places are on a map (I didn't either) but her reaction was distinct in hearing I was heading to these places.  These are towns and places that we don't often hear about in the Western media.  I'm too young for that war.  My memory related to that was was from many years after the US soldiers had departed, the South surrendered to the Communist North and the French had been driven from the country for decades.

I must have been about seventeen when we went to Washington DC as a family.  I remember being excited about the monuments, museums and a detour to some Civil War sights (yes, I was and am a history dork).  At this point in my life I hadn't left the West Coast much.  DC was a long way away and a place with lots more history than Seattle.

One day, I don't know when during the trip, we were walking about the monuments.  The Lincoln Monument, the Reflecting pool, etc.  We stopped at the Vietnam Memorial.  It's a series of black marble panels erected perpendictular to the ground in a long low wall. The names of the service men who died in or because of the war (counting only physical injuries resulting in death, not trauma and dysfunction) or were missing in action are all inscribed here.

I don't know if he saw a name he knew or if it was just being there, but my dad had his head in his hand and cried.  I'd never seen him cry before and it stunned me.  Later we talked about it.  All these years later, he still felt guilty that he hadn't gone to fight.  He was given an exemption as he was the primary breadwinner in a family with two very small children.  While grateful he didn't have to go he felt guilt that so many others did.  He knew men his age that were called up in the draft, and a few who died.

As my generation is embroiled in it's own quagmire of a war, I wonder how many young men may end up feeling the same way my father did.  My ex was in the Army.  His unit was sent to Iraq but he was kept back due to kidney stone and then released when his service was up. I know he felt conflicted about it and it may compound over the years the way it did for my dad.  Will anyone be there to support these soldier and men any better than they were thirty years ago?

*Interesting side note: The Lonely Planet guidebook I've been reading always refers to sites from the American War, which I assume is how the Vietnamese refer to the war.  In the US it's always called the Vietnam War.  I suppose it's easier to identify it as someone else's war and fault than to take a slice of the responsibility.  It had never occured to me that there might be another name for it.