Take That Trip
I’m in an investment group where we talk about stocks, and bonds, and where our next money play should be. I barely talk in it, partially because I don’t always know what’s going on. I’m like always a few steps behind. This group though, I have always believed is going to be the future black professionals of the world that you’re going to want to know when you’re 40 or looking for a new job, or starting a business.
Which is why I feel like they would be disappointed to know just how much I splurge on trips.
Yes trips, my way to get away. I met this woman named Melanie, well not met, I worked with her. She looks 48 but is probably 10 years younger than that, and she spends a majority of her time working. It’s kind of like her calling card. And she’s not even the CEO she’s slaving away making somebody else money. She said things like “I’m so tied up” “you know it’s Monday” recently, she bragged to us that for the first time in a few years, she was finally taking a vacation, to bumblef*#% Florida. I thought to myself I have never felt so sorry for a white woman in my life.
Because living to work and working to live are two different things. One for the majority is a necessity, the other one seems, well kind of sad. She had no idea that she gave me the reminder that I may not have all my shit together all the time, but at least I value experiencing life outside my desk. Now, to be clear, I know that if you cannot afford a luxurious vacation this doesn’t count. I’m not tone deaf to the ways capitalism has left thousands of people in our country living below the poverty line. However, survival mode or not, if you are not taking time to do things that give you peace no matter how large or small, and you believe your value of existence is shown in your work ethic alone…this piece is still for you. In fact, my boss kind of doubled down on that reality for me unintentionally. We were having a casual conversation on Friday, and he said something, that resonated with me. It was a reminder that this is a job and he is my boss, and that power dynamic is incredibly evident. Moreover I can be a friend, a comfort, companion to him, but for me, he will always be my boss first. Sitting on the other side of the desk was a reminder that if I am living, to have a loyalty, to a person or a job that in any sense can see me as disposable, I am making a grave mistake. This was all just more fuel to the fire, of me living my ultimate dreams as well as enjoying my life along the way.
See I love trips, I love gearing up for them, I love excursions, I love how I feel when I am outside of the county, hell, the state even. Vacation Ivana is so sexy. I couldn’t imagine living 365 days working, just to experience real life for only 2 weeks. So my guilty pleasure, my kryptonite, my crack if you will, is trips. Trips give me something to look forward too, but they also have taught me how to take a little bit of that back home. See at home with the same responsibilities, the same people, the same routine. Not every day feels like a vacation, in fact most don’t. However, if I can find peace and get through each day, if I can remember just a little bit of how unbothered I feel when I am away, or how eventually, I will be away again. It helps.
My mother has said to me “you’re always going someplace” my cousins too, and the thing is, they’re right. It’s worth it to experience something outside of the Short Hills mall in New Jersey, Times Square, and a DC bottomless brunch. If for nothing else than to broaden my horizons and remind myself that there is a world outside my own that can feel so consuming.
I am always down to go someplace, and I will budget or do whatever it takes to do so. A job can fire you whenever it wants, but you can’t un-experience a Costa Rican sunrise . The best way to experience trips I’ve found is with family, friends, or a significant other: I can’t speak on a solo trip cause I don’t have the courage or sense of direction to go on one of those yet.
My first and ultimate favorite type of trip, a girl's trip. I am someone who has always struggled with being in a group, and by struggle I mean I never really have been in one. I bounced around, I'm like that friend who seems like she has a lot of friends but doesn't necessarily fit in a specific group. I think that's why God gave me two sisters, because he knows I never really would have stuck anywhere else anyway. Don't get me wrong, I'm not like a crappy friend or anything, I'm just more so a floater. But when it comes to a trip, oh I'm in the gang, the clique, the cult. Recently I went out of the country for one of my good friend’s birthdays, and I had a blast. I got tattoos, I saw a waterfall, I drank, I took a million pictures in my bikini. It also took years of figuring out how to travel best for ME to really enjoy the vacation itself. That good time was mostly due to trial, error, and horror stories from others. I have learned how to travel on a girl’s trip, the right way. There are a couple things that are just systematically important for girl’s trips to work. Or friendship trips, this is for the guys reading too.
ME TIME:
I always take time for myself, it doesn't matter if it is an hour in the morning, or if it is going to take the ultimate vacation nap, and then waking up and just being alone in the dark for a while. I've always taken time for myself, and in this time I write, I meditate, I might FaceTime someone from back home to give me the reality that there is a place outside of this very large echoey Airbnb. The point is I don't want to see any of my friends faces for a little while, and that's just to regroup. When you think about it vacation is fun, but you are in a place that you are unaccustomed to, and you are in living quarters with people, that you don't live with normally. So to have some time for yourself to collect your own energy, it helps.
FINACIALLY PREPARED:
And yeah, having great energy is super wonderful for the universal whatever, but you know what's even better? Making sure you budget. I have never been the broke friend on the trip, however I have been the friend who has forgotten to call the incredibly small bank that I am still a part of, because my mother has an account there. And thus I am in a Spanish speaking country with no access to my debit cards and have to cashapp my friends for every Margarita I want to drink. So I feel like I need to say this: budget your money. Whether you were going to Miami, or you are going to the Bahamas. Make sure you have enough money just in case someone else doesn't, or just in case you need to get the hell out of there. I've always said no matter what trip I go on I am going to make sure one thing, if shit hits the fan I can pay for a hotel, and a flight home. Yeah, I might be crying the entire time but at least I won't be stranded out in the streets and OK it doesn't usually get that intense right? Like the worst case scenario is that your friends pay for everything then make a viral TikTok video about how broke you are, and follow it up with never inviting you anywhere again. In the weeks prior to, I stay in the house and save my money. I try to see how much of my outfit in my closet, that I can actually utilize. I know I'm going to spend a lot of money on my nails and on my hair and on last minute toiletries so I try my best to make sure that I am financially responsible. I don't want to be counting my coins every time I want to get an appetizer. If I'm going to go on the trip I'm going to do it right and I'm going to enjoy to the best of my ability. Of course, this doesn’t not count if you are a woman in your early 20s backpacking with your boyfriend of six months across Europe. Although if you are, I kind of don't think you're reading this blog anyway so let's move on.
TAKE IT EASY:
I try not to sweat the small stuff when going on trips. And the best way to do that is to not expect things to be perfect. Every trip I've gone on there's been some sort of mayhem. Whether I get my feelings hurt, because two girls in the group are being caddy. Or one friend has an attitude and it kind of ruins dinner for everyone. I just try not to think too much into stuff. I try not to expect the trip to be perfect. Much like birthdays, there should never be something that goes 100% your way because if it does then it sets the tone for this insane ideation that things can be perfect, or as in human nature, you start trying to make things more perfect.
And honestly, I feel like I try to avoid anything that will end up in discomfort, like I bring my own toiletries, at least the majority, like I know I'm going to forget to pack Midol but my friend won't so I can always ask for that. But major things that I know I'll need daily, like tampons, hair products, certain soap or perfume that I like. I pack it all baby. And yeah I'm pushing it and my suitcase might be over 50 pounds but at least I have every item and I'm not asking to borrow from someone else. Thus standing in their bathroom using their straightener, which results in them calling you out about it when we're seven shots deep at the after hours hole in the wall that we found on Yelp.
I realize as I've gotten older that trips aren't always going to go as planned, unless you have a deposit down for an excursion, most times, days are going to get switched around plans are going to change, things aren't always set in stone. It helps when you’re with a good group. I think much more now about the people that mesh, and the people that I actually would want to be in a foreign country with. Personally, I've realized there are three best friends of mine that I most likely will never travel with. I will only ever see them in the United States, and yeah part of that is depressing, but it's also kind of a relief. My travel buddies and I have built a bond, a true sisterhood, like if I need to move a body I probably would call the three women that I go out of the country with every year to come help me. And that's OK, I don't love any of my other friends less, I just happen to love these three girls a little more. OK kidding, I love them a little differently.
Speaking of love can we talk about baecations. I have a confession to make, I had never been on a baecation before my boyfriend that I am with now. And I guess for me it was like one of the last virginities that I had. Oh my gosh that sounds horrible, but it's true it's one of the last first times which makes sense, because I'm 27 years old. I said to myself early on that if I waited this long to go on this infamous couples trip, that I wanted to be with the person I planned to spend the rest of my life with. I'm really happy about that and there's a few reasons. The first is that if you go on a trip with a significant other, they are more likely to pay for shit. And can we talk about compatibility? I feel safe and comfortable doing things like using the bathroom, or getting a little bit too drunk, or that fried smell coming from my straightener as I get ready for dinner. I like feeling like I don't have to do anything I don't want to do, there's no weird implication. If we get in an argument on the trip, there's a strong sense of wanting to stay together by the time we come home, or it being a realization that maybe we aren't right for each other. But listen I know a bunch of people that have gone on trips with someone that wasn't their significant other. I feel like calling it a sneaky link is just a really gross derived theme. Like it's just two people that enjoy each others energy and want to spend time with with each other on a beach, what's the harm with that? What I think is weird though is that these people go on these trips, because they're following some stupidass meme that someone posted about what a first date should look like, and they find themselves at the Sandals Beach Resort with a guy who snores, or a girl who talks really loudly on FaceTime. Or you get so wrapped up in this fantasy as your swimming around in the Infinity pool and sipping Pina Coladas that you actually think that the two of you are in love, and when you fly back in to the LaGuardia Airport, you are shocked that it is not the case. I always say decide what you all are before you board that flight.
Regardless of the type of trip. Make sure you put your safety, wellbeing, and health first. This is your time away and you deserve to enjoy it. I'm going to leave you with this, a couple years ago I decided to go to a group cabin trip for a friend's birthday. it was half couples and half single people. What I learned while on the trip is that only one of those couples we're officially an item, the others were situationships in either a hopeful phase or are we probably shouldn't even be on this trip together phase. It was on day two of that trip that I got the heaviest period flow I have ever experienced in my adult life. I was sitting there in a wooden mansion with paranoid “girlfriends in training” and another group that was definitely going to have an orgy later. When the clock struck 1:30 AM and the lights dimmed, because game night was consequently over, I walked upstairs, I went into my room and I closed the door.
