Bailey Blog

A raw write

I have a lot of plans to travel. But I can’t do it yet. I’ll be traveling to San Diego in the near future but no longer than a weekend.

When a loved on is dying, you don’t want to be too far away for too long.

I love traveling. When I graduated high school, I went on a trip with my mom, her best friend, and my best friend. We went to Donastia-San Sebastián, Paris, Rome, and London. I then partook in a study abroad to Rome and Paris for four months the next school year.

The summer after that, I went on a trip to Barcelona, Madrid, and Paris with another friend. Then I transferred to my four-year Uni, COVID descended, and I’ve been grounded in the US since then. A few stunning trips to New Orleans and Salem (MA), but nothing transcontinental.

How I dream of a trip with good friends and family to experience new culture. I do want to move to Spain at some point; if even for a few months. The joy of gaining self-reliance, discerning your path in a world that is yours to make your own. I long for it and new connections to the places I only dream of.

But now I will not leave. I cannot bear the thought of being more than a few days without the one I love just as much as I love my twin sister; my dad. He is recovering from a fruitless surgery and heartbreaking news. The impending knowledge of palliative care. Months ago he qualified for Hospice; but we fought and persisted. Now there is no longer another step that might give him more time. Now we hold on as the sickness progresses.

I have trips and things to do and yearn for. But I will not yearn more than for this time I have now in the future. Plans are fun and I love having something to look forward to. When the future is bleak and I would rather live forever in the past, I will have my travel to excite me. For now my travel is to be near and close to him.

I will hold on to every second, every story, every embrace because that is the whole point- the moment, the everything that we truly live for. Connection. To know loss is to have been loved deeply. In all of this darkness, the light- the luck- is to have known how it feels to have been loved unconditionally.