Journal tiled_rainbows's Journal: to travel or not
As I've got older, this conflict between doing the ironing and going out looking for adventures has become one of the defining tensions of my life. Much as I value the unexpected and the unpredictable, I also have to admit to rather liking security, stability, predictability, and sameness. Whenever I have moved to a new area, I have felt slightly lost until I have settled on a local pub[1]. I always eat lunch at the same café, even though there are only two things on the menu that I really like, meaning that I have to eat ham, egg and chips on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and shepherd's pie on Tuesdays and Thursdays. My wife is not like this. She has travelled. When she was a kid, she spent a year in India, and then hitchhiked home. About three years ago, she decided that she wanted to go travelling again, and tried to convince me to come with her to South-East Asia to see the ancient temples and jungles and elephants and stuff. I thought of the ancient temples of Angkor Wat (vide Tomb Raider 1), the beaches, the street-markets of Bangkok. I thought of how I was yuoung and without responsibilities, and how such opportunities don't come along very often. I wondered how many other people have ever had a beautiful lovely woman ask them to accompany them to the other side of the world to explore strange new cultures and lie around on the beach. But then I thought to myself, "But I have got responsibilities. It's a bad time, work-wise, to be taking time out, and I'm angling for a pay rise."
So Sarah went and spent eight weeks in Cambodia, and I took the pay rise. It was a difficult decision to make, and, in retrospect, it was wrong, too. Sarah brough some amazing pictures back, and saw some incredible stuff, but she said that it felt lonely at times, without me. I was, in retrospect, a bit of a fool. It wasn't much of a pay rise anyway.
Endnote
[1] Currently the Bedford Arms, on the corner of Bedford Hill and Fernlea Road, Balham, SW12. Not the big saloon bar, though, but the quieter public bar around the corner, which is accessed via a separate entrance on Fernlea Road.