Boldly Go Solo

It's hard to leave good friends you've made while traveling.

People
who haven't experienced solo travel don't realize how tight the bonds
can be when you click with someone abroad, or on the road. How can you
walk away from someone you've so enjoyed being with, knowing you might
never see him or her again? Or at least not for a long time?

This theme has come up several times in the past few weeks. 

One
insightful post by a woman who is backpacking solo in China writes,
"The question isn't, 'Am I lonely?' It's something along the lines of,
"Can I handle making good friends and leaving them, over and over
again?"

The repeated goodbyes make her sad. But, she realizes, "I could mope around and mourn the loss of a stable support group, or I
can relish the prospect of meeting more interesting people in a shorter
time period than I ever will again in my life."

Funny, a friend of mine, Irene, who wrote the book, "Best Friends Forever," recently asked me to answer a question that came in on her site, "The Friendship Blog."
A woman asked for advice on how to stay long-distance friends with
someone you met while away and really enjoyed traveling with.

The Q & A appeared on Huffington Post, as well as on Psychology Today, as well as on The Friendship Blog.
(Irene is prolific and connected!) You can find the "answer" on any one
of those sites. The relationship, obviously, will have to change when
you're no longer in the same city…or country.

The lesson is along the lines of "It's better to have loved and lost…"

When
I look at the second photo in this post, taken in an "ice bar" during a hiking, kayaking,
biking trip in New Zealand, I can't remember the name of the woman
sitting next to me top left, second one in. Nor the guy in the
forefront.

But when I look
at Melinda, kneeling, and wife and husband Kasey and James from Canada, top right,
different emotions come smashing together, like particles in the
Superconducting Super Collider. (Dramatic, no?)

It was such a great trip. And it is so over, the pieces never to fall in place again, with those particular people.

I
liked Melinda right away. She also arrived in New Zealand alone and we
started talking, and clicking, the first few minutes of the trip. Kasey
is one of the funniest people I've met. James and I bonded over
photography, with him giving me lessons in how to shoot.

I
never saw Kasey again, although we emailed for years.
James came through Washington once and I cooked him dinner. They have
two girls now, whom I've never met because I never went and visited
them in Nova Scotia. Though I always meant to.

Melinda and I met up in Buenos Aires several years later and traveled through Argentina together. 

Would
it have been better to stay home and never meet these people so I
wouldn't experience the loss later? And feel sad about it even now? (As
well as grateful for the experience.) Of course not.

But I understand what Kim describes in her post. It can be tough to say good-bye.

Photos: New Zealand, South Island. New friends and me.