Have you ever let go of rigid schedules? Whether you're traveling or navigating daily routines, share your stories of embracing unscripted moments!
I’ll go first…
Apologies for leaving you all reading flash fiction for a few days, but William and I both took a turn being down with a cold which has been a rather annoying upset to our otherwise utterly idyllic one-room apartment life (HA!). Thankfully, I was having fun writing little stories instead of feeling badly that I’m across the world and laid out on the couch (see below the fold if you’re interested).
Today, we visited Den Haag to tour an apartment and the agent mentioned something about being away for the weekend and I genuinely wondered how far away that might be. A quick check of my phone and I understood why he brought it up.
Before we left the US and after the haze of that bleary period before the year’s end, I remember first losing track of what day it was. Whether or not it was a weekday or weekend barely mattered to two unemployed people who were packing up their home. It only became an issue when we wanted to go somewhere that wasn’t open.
When I first traveled abroad in high school, I was in the middle of a French math class with my host sister when I found myself unable to keep my eyes open. It was unlike anything my sixteen year old self had ever encountered. I couldn’t make this analogy at the time since the devices weren’t yet ubiquitous, but the feeling must be exactly what your iPhone feels like when you hold down the power button until everything goes blank.
Let’s not count how many years later, but I know now that it was good Lady Jetlag sneaking up on me. At the time, I was young enough that I had no concept of the change, let alone its impacts on my physical body. All I could think was that I was in goddamn France and there was far too much to see in such a short trip! For posterity’s sake, I tried my best…and I still can’t believe that I brought home more than two dozen rolls of film.
That’s right everyone, I was sixteen BEFORE digital cameras when you still had to ration the number of pictures you took and pay someone to transfer each of them onto a piece of paper…and hope they were in focus since it would be weeks from taking to holding the photo…
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