Journal of Becoming: Entry #5—The Last Trip I Take with This Version of Me
Ending an era and hanging up my coat
By the time you read this, I will be in Belfast on the last leg of my month-long trip around Ireland. In real time, I’m writing this the day before I leave—bags packed, ready to go. I’m spending this afternoon finalizing some bits and bobs—planning a day trip to the Cliffs of Moher and Aran Islands, booking a BnB in a small seaside town on the Wild Atlantic, making a list of all the bookshops and libraries I want to visit in Dublin. Ireland has been on my bucket list for as long as I can remember, so while I am thrilled to be taking this solo backpacking trip, it is also bittersweet.
Because this isn’t just a trip. It’s a farewell tour—a symbolic end of a chapter in my life.
For the last decade, I have been more or less freewheeling, going wherever the wind blows me. I have been untethered, rootless. Solo travel and discovering new-to-me lands has brought me closer to my independent, self-reliant, free-spirited, carefree self. This version of me has felt more expansive, open, joyful, and in-tune than who I was when I lived in the U.S. and worked a soul sucking 9-5. This version has had a lot more freedom and fewer constraints and responsibilities. I also have a lot less stuff, and that in itself has been freeing.
And this is the version of me that I am taking on this trip. One last hurrah.
This is probably going to be my last trip for a very long time, as I will soon need to hunker down and get a full-time job, a car, sign a lease, obtain all the insurances, be beholden to someone else’s timeframe and schedule, and basically relearn how to be an adult in the US. It may be the last trip I ever take period as this freer version of myself as I shed it in favor of a more stable, responsible, rooted one.
And that is terrifying.
I know I will travel again—it’s who I am. And while I do look forward to exploring more of the United States—I have seen more of the rest of the world than my own country—I fear and mourn this transition, this identity shift. I fear the possibility of living paycheck to paycheck and not having enough money for travel, because this was once my reality. I fear a return to the rat race and a more structured life. I already mourn the loss of freedom that this life has given me. I mourn the loss of an imagined future I had for myself, a potential never realized of a completely nomadic lifestyle that I could fund with just my brain and a laptop.
I’m still trying to reconcile these feelings of defeat and resignation, this shedding of one identity for an older one. It’s like pulling out an old coat from storage—one that was never really my style and didn’t fit properly then and certainly doesn’t now—and wondering why the hell I ever held onto it because I didn’t like it then and I never anticipated ever having to wear it again.
And while I will soon have to don that familiar yet ratty old coat once more, I will not be wearing it on this final trip. No, on this trip I will be decked out in my amazing technicolor dreamcoat—the one that makes me the more outgoing, curious, adventurous, sparkly version of myself.
And a poncho as well because—Ireland.
Perhaps I will be able to spruce up that old coat—add some pins and patches from my travels, let out the seams a little bit so it doesn’t feel quite so constraining. I might even learn to love wearing it again.
I think it’s easier to close a chapter of your life when you know for certain the next will be better. But when you feel pushed into closing it, or are not sure what’s to come, or the new chapter looks too much like one you had already firmly closed, the endings feel a bit scarier.
So, while I am thoroughly excited to chat up locals at pub sessions, wander through centuries-old universities, and meander around cobblestoned towns, a part of me is sad for what this last trip represents and is already missing the version of myself I will be leaving behind there.
Maybe—like the old, tattered coat I’ll soon be pulling out of storage—I’m just packing the technicolor dreamcoat away for now.
And one day, I’ll wear it on my travels again.
This made me a little sad. Maybe just put the technicolor coat in your closet to possibly be taken out another time, or maybe just to look at as a reminder. Or maybe just embrace the end of an era, as you're going out with a travel bang! Sometimes that passing the torch is sad. When I returned to Costa Rica this year for a visit after being away 2 1/2 years, there was a quote that touched me that I used for my Substack post title. It is "No one steps in the same river twice. It's not the same river and I'm not the same person." Enjoy the rest of your Ireland trip!