Travel Weary

I am in Stockholm tonight.  Not really, because I’m post dating all of these posts so that there isn’t a gap while I’m away.  I manage to write enough posts before I left that I had a daily post through 16 days of my trip, but of course, that left me with a 4 day gap to  worry about constantly.  So, it’s a Friday night.  I’m sitting here doing laundry in the hotel and conceding to anxiety and perfectionism.

Fortunately, I bought a keyboard just before I left.  It’s a bluetooth keyboard so I can sync it to my phone (other phone, tablet, etc.) and then type on the keyboard and the text is written on my phone screen.  Which is super convenient because I was in no way ever going to haul a laptop to Europe with me, and I just knew I was eventually going to concede to perfectionism (and possibly anxiety) and write those last four blog posts.

Plus, I can stealth chat with Sir and Sub Brother and pretend  I’m just writing an email.

Today was a travel day, and I think I’m wearing down.  We’ve had to stops in a row that were only 2 nights (one full day in the place to sightsee) then on to the next place.  And I think that is wearing me down.  I would much rather stay in a place for 2 or 3 days than have to pack and haul my luggage and figure out buses, trains, and airplanes the next day.

Also, the days we aren’t traveling we are packing full, which is awesome and I’m having an amazing time, but I think today it is catching up with me.  I feel tired and… my friend MJ used to say… puny.  He would use that to describe days when his disease was getting him down, and I think it’s a good word.  I just don’t feel strong or robust or… confident.

On the plane today I was thinking I feel submissive.  I wanted someone else to take over and just know where to go and what to do and what gate and how to get a taxi and speak the language and… all the stressful things I’ve been dealing with over and over.  I wanted someone else to be in charge.

I didn’t want to be responsible anymore.  Then I realized, that’s not being submissive, that’s just being travel-weary.  That is why people hire tour guides and go on bus tours and do all those amazingly lucrative businesses of helping people travel because… it’s just fucking exhausting!

But I also wondered if my first extinct of feeling submissive when I was overwhelmed and wanted someone else to take over responsibility meant that my submission is, itself, escaping responsibility.  Am I abdicating my personal responsibility as an adult, as a partner in a relationship, as all of those important grown-up things by being submissive and defering to Sir’s authority?

I thought about this and made myself miserable for most of the 45 minute plane ride, then most of the 40 minute taxi ride, then I was just too tired and depressed and have just been… puny… at the hotel.

So I emailed Sir, because, it’s midnight there, but he came online because he’s in California right now and on vacation and apparently still awake and wanting to talk to a mopy sub in the middle of the night.

We didn’t talk for long, but it was good to see him and talk to him for a little bit. And he made this point.

Submitting to him doesn’t actually abdicate my responsibilities.  I, possibly, take on even more responsibilities because I perform service…  a whole other blog post.  But in service, I actually take on and take care of things in order to make his life/our lives better or easier.  I make phone calls, I make arrangements, I set up plane tickets and airport shuttles and all kinds of things.  I do work in my submission.  My submission is something else.

So, now, I think, maybe that wanting to be submissive on the plane was more about wanting comfort.  Like longing for home and a familiar bed.  Maybe it wasn’t as much about wanting to abdicate responsibility in general, but more just wishing for a break from the… pressures of travel.

And maybe in that, I can give myself some compassion.

I’m tired.

Travel is amazing.  But it is wearing and wearying. Especially when I have to take on the responsibilities of both of us.

So tonight, I do laundry.  And heat up some Swedish meatballs.

The hotel provides breakfast so that will be a nice break from prepping every meal for myself.  And then we will see Stockholm.  I have to go figure out what we’re going to see tomorrow.  And what buses and subways we have to take to get there, and how much it will cost, and wear to change our money (I still have a wallet full of Danish Kroners).

But, for now, laundry.  Food.  A bed. Not my own, but a comfortable enough one for a stranger bed.

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