“Melissa…” my Mom’s voice trails off.
I see her hands tighten around the steering wheel, an action typically triggered by careless drivers on the thruway. But today, it’s inspired by what I’ve just explained to her. After a few days of chattering about my trip up to Maine, one phrase hooked her.
A phrase that she continues to repeat during our drive back from Staples.
“You don’t know her?” she asks of my future host, Nicole. “You’re working for her? What?”
She shakes her head, laughing a little.
“I’m sorry,” she apologies. “This is just really weird to me.”
I imagine that after years of travel talks, mentions of “my friend Sarah from Portland”, “Sandra, who I met in Iceland but going to Costa Rica with,” or “Oh, Nina from Caz who lives in D.C. now,” my parents have almost completely tuned me out. But like any mother, a few key words pique my mom’s interest – including “stranger” and “met on the internet”.
She finally accepts it, chalking it up to my courage. It reminds me of an article I read not too long ago, about how most solo travelers are brave and confident by default. The author summarized that since she wasn’t those things, solo travel hadn’t suited her well. It left a bad taste in my mouth, and a resistance to the label “brave”.
Because if you have to always be brave to travel alone, it’s not for me either.
A few months ago (it has to be close to 7 or 8 now), I was sitting in my ex boyfriend’s car. He had just returned a few of my things, and we were talking about our various experiences dating other people since we broke up. He mentioned a type of girl he’d encountered, one that “wanted to get married, travel around Europe for a month, then go home and have babies.”
I saw him tense up, something he usually did before saying something bold or controversial.
“You’re brave,” he blurted out.
I’ve thought about those words, almost an accusation, since then. You’re brave, he said, as I drove through Vermont, New Hampshire and up through Maine. You’re brave, he echoed, as I couchsurfed in Keene with another stranger, inched closer to the ledge of Mount Megunticook, or curled up in my comforter in the back of my SUV.
I felt uncomfortable about it because I don’t always feel brave. If I waited for that feeling to come around, I wouldn’t get anywhere. I wouldn’t have pulled into that stranger’s driveway. I would have turned back when my knees started to involuntarily shake as I neared steep cliffs. When I fearfully awoke at 3 AM to a tip tapping on my windshield, I would have sought refuge in a Hampton Inn, somewhere where I was absolutely safe and invulnerable, and in close proximity to HBO.
So alas, I’m not brave, and my choice to travel alone boils down to one teeny character flaw: I’m just very impatient. I chose to go to Maine alone because the opportunity was there. I never considered inviting anyone else because I didn’t want to wait. I travel solo, in the nomadic, bare bones way that I do, because I’m just really anxious to get to the next place, with the next best Melissa. And when I’m out at a restaurant or in a coffee shop by myself, in a strange, unfamiliar city, right along with me, is the next, best Melissa. The stronger, happiest version of myself that really just loves to explore.
“Isn’t this great?” she grins, as the waiter sets down a glass of red wine. “I told you you’d love this. I told you for all those years.”
She’s with me while I’m walking on a quiet trail, because my ideas are clattering around like the inside of a pinball machine. My co-pilot on long, tedious drives, with hours to invest in ridiculous thoughts and fantasies. The one, that on my return home, has me feverishly burning through Google Maps because she “just really feels like climbing a mountain today.”
She was the one, that for a good part of my dating-obsessed 20s, followed me wherever I went. As boyfriends quietly slept besides me, and potential suitors chatted about their favorite sports teams over the sound of clinking beer glasses, she whispered the names of exotic places in my ear. When friends talked about upcoming weekends at the beach, or possible spring break getaways, she chuckled, and forwarded me articles about volunteering with elephants in Thailand.
But her presence doesn’t guarantee confidence, and neither does this label of “brave”. While meant to be complimentary, this damning five letter word just draws a line in the sand for anyone considering doing something intimidating. It’s a tattoo, a brand, a binding contract with the universe that once brave, you must always be and remain brave.
If you’re not brave, the line taunts, don’t cross me. You won’t fit in, it tries to tell me, citing examples of lonely nights at hostel bars. You won’t meet anyone, it warns, listing of times I went somewhere and didn’t meet anyone new.
Screw that line. Screw that brand. Screw being brave.
Instead of being brave, try being determined. Try wanting something that’s worth the fear. Try just trying and finishing, for the sake of completing something, for the sake of looking back and saying, “at least I did it.”
When I do get bursts of bravery, I welcome it in, knowing it could quickly disappear in favor of someone more experienced or worldly. I pursue it with views of faraway peaks, romance it with those solo viewings of Casablanca, and woo it with magical nights underneath a bed of stars, in attempts to convince it each time, to please just stick with me a little longer.
You don’t need to brave to travel alone. You just need to show up.