The Morocco trip started as a great idea. With 5 days off, my second summer session a week away, and a holiday approaching, I was free. Saying yes to meeting him in Morocco was easy. Unrealized, the fact that taking off to Morocco on the spur of the moment was a dubious enterprise.
I’d been to Morocco before. I didn’t remember it being a difficult journey. A brief retrospective would have reminded me that at the time I was young, with no planning responsibilities, embarked from France, and was oblivious to details of travel, spending most of my road time reading and playing Tetris. My only excuse for consenting to this current trip was my incorrect assumption of the journey’s relative simplicity. It wasn’t until I attempted to maneuver flights, flights that didn’t have me in air or airport for 48 hours or more of those 5 precious days, that I discovered the trip wasn’t doable. Given time and cost, two and a half days on the ground simply wasn’t good enough.
I felt pressured, there is no doubt, but I wanted to go, believe me, and my effort, though not valiant, was persistent. I couldn’t make it work. I was disappointed, but that was the way of it. Some think me renitent. That is not the case. I don’t see where using logic to make personal decisions makes someone the queen of opposition. It is the illogical making of personal decisions that causes the difficulties in my world.
More surprising to me was that the majority of those I queried on this subject think that running off on a 5 day jaunt to Morocco, even at cost well above the average workers weekly take home pay, and considering the 48 hours spent in planes or ports, would have been the right thing to do. They call it “romantic”, “exhilarating”, and “what people in relationships do”. The usual response was “if you care about someone you’ll do anything, and if you care about yourself more you won’t”.
This is it then, the heart of it, the kicker, the crux and the essence. I believe you can care about someone with all your heart and still be reasonable. I understand now that logic requires taking a pass sometimes, and not just on trips to Morocco. I believe you can love and care for someone, but given time, space, and circumstance, find yourself in a position where it doesn’t float well on your life wave. It sinks, and you with it. The truth laid bare, a truth I feel some remorse over without actually knowing how to change it, and possessing no real desire to do so, is (right or wrong) I care for myself more.
Post title courtesy of R.E.M, The One I Love
sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt
Is this real. I was lulled to thinking it was a story at first. If it’s RL you’ve pushed my “now I’m depressed button”.
Life is about timing, that makes it either less or more depressing, depends how you look at it.
The best coop, you should come first, it’s the prime of your life.
jake´s last blog ..Electronic Waste
I think so too. Not a story in the fictional sense.
A little jaunt around the globe isn’t a “reasonable” request for a relationship, especially at the last minute! It’s too bad the trip didn’t work out, but I can only imagine the hassle that you went through.
Angela´s last blog ..TMI Thursday: What a Dream
Indeed it wasn’t reasonable.
Does this mean your available? Just asking because Yagi’s been in love with you since Costa Rica. He’s living in NY with his GF but I’m sure he’d scurry down…
If ya can’t laugh about life being one great big tough call, what can ya laugh at.
I know where you’re coming from, we’ve all made those decisions. Most of us aren’t any worse for them. Not all but most.
Is yagi tall? If so, I’m available. ;)
kait´s last blog ..The Uniform Project
How encouraging G.
I can’t get to Boston without planning. Not wanting to fly to Morocco for a couple days is more than reasonable. I think the thread was already pulled as tight as it could be, or am I wrong?
No apologies needed I get you.
I love that song.
kait´s last blog ..The Uniform Project
I can go to other places Morocco is just too hard for a lot of reasons.
The romantic in me wants to believe that anything is doable if it’s in the pursuit of love. But the realist in me knows that sometimes that affection sometimes has to take a backseat to the reality of the situation.
Hell, the bulk of my posts on my site deal with me acting impulsively or irrationally because I cared (or thought I cared) about someone so deeply. I’m a person driven by passion a lot of the time and I can tell you that I’ve failed at each and everyone of those endeavors just as often as I’ve succeeded.
Common sense and romantic idealism have just never been able to mix well for me, I guess. LOL
mojo shivers´s last blog ..Little Rosa, The Boys Let Her Know, She’s Just Not That Way, She Don’t Put On A Show, For Nobody, Not Even You, She’s Gonna Sit Alone
I guess it’s a matter of wanting. I suppose if one is frantic and insane something like that could be planned but I am neither of those things.
Um, right. Listen to the phrase. Are you listening?
“Quick trip to Morocco.”
Did you hear that?
All will be well, I’m sure.
Doug´s last blog ..Hesitation
Are you back from you much needed, unplanned, idle time?
I am. And a quick trip overseas, but that’s not the point.
Doug´s last blog ..The Reformation of Wolfshausen
The romantic in me was lost sometime ago. And why oh why did Doug post ahead of me as I was going to say “nobody has ever heard of a quick trip (typo trick – which might have been relevant) to Morocco.” Not as poetic or clever as his but.….
pia´s last blog ..Bless you® heart, Miss Pia, you look divine….
I tried to be the first.…lol
If my “quick trip” to San Francisco last week was any indication the Morocco thing would have been a nightmare.
There are a lot of places you can go overseas for a “quick trip” from the East Coast, Morocco is not one of them.
I wouldn’t call it selfish at all. I think flights to exotic countries on such short notice, with airports in the state they are in, is more suicidal than romantic.
jacob´s last blog ..Lightening
suicide — not in my vocabulary…
There is a time for every purpose. Currently it’s time to live your own life and care more about yourself. One day it’ll be different.
On second thought I’m not sure anyone should ever stop caring about themselves first except when kids are involved.
It easier to get to Johannesburg for a quick trip than Morocco.
john´s last blog ..Chew On This
One day it may be different, it may not be as well. I have no way of knowing that right now.
It’s easier to get to a lot of places than Morocco, Liberia is one of them.
Whatever I’m really settling in to my selfishness quite nicely.
God, I have to come round more often. Hell with it. The truth laid bare it is.