Reflections on Travel

Travel for me is the rare time to not get any phone calls or text messages.  I guess above all, this is why I love to travel.  It goes beyond seeing a new place.  Yes, it possibly equals meeting with people I don’t get to see a lot.  But what I love most about travel is that it gives me time away from being reached and allows that time to be spent with people I love and miss and really interact with them.  Real time.  With no distraction.

I have been really blessed in terms of travel this year.  I remember when I started out with my Novena to God’s Love.  This Novena is a daily prayer which contains my dreams, seven of them.  I have lost my copy, but must renew it again.  If I recall off the top of my head, I believe I wrote under number 6: to travel long distances at least once a year.

This year, I have beat that.  It is surprising for me to enumerate the places I have been to this 2017:

January: Korea, on a sponsored trip

February: No travels, but my photos showed sip and gogh, and golf!

March: Tagaytay for Sonya’s Garden with Wil and Trees; LJ reunion at Alabang

April: Staycation for PSN

May: PCP, Makati staycation with Aia

J

June: Beach at Nasugbu with Aia, Jo, Eliza and Mabs

July: Bali and Singapore with Pansol Choir

August: Bangkok, Thailand for ISHD

September: Darwin, Australia for Australian Society of Nephrology Pre-Convention; Sidney, Australia to meet with Dianne, Ge, Dia and Karen!

1. October: PSN midyear at Palawan
2. November: somewhere, hopefully with Van and JP
3. December: Iligan for Magoo’s wedding.
4. January, 2018:  I hope to go to Marawi to help Aireen with her family there
5. July, 2018: I hope to go to the US to visit my sister and bring my brother with me, so that it will be his turn to go and see them.
6. Hopefully, sometime in 2018, I get to go to Japan with friends so that I may Just Always Pray at Night.
7. Hopefully, sometime in 2018, I get sponsored to go to either the ERA-EDTA or the ASN with friends.  Just so I know that I can be. J
8. Hopefully, sometime in my life, I hope to get to go to the Pilgrimage to the Holy Land with Rosally

Which is funny, because my horoscope today said that it would be my worst year.  So far, it has been one of the best!   I am so thankful for all these opportunities to travel.  They have presented themselves to me.  I otherwise would not have gone to these places if not for the people in the industry, my talents or my friends who helped me see the world.

Of course, there are certain things I would wish the most, but is still not here.  In the meantime, while waiting, I am happy that I have had the chance to see the world.

Travelling is really terrific because the dead time in the plane, with no cell phone or internet signal, is the time I really get to wrestle with God and myself.  It is the time when I am pushed to reflect on how my life has been and how I want it to become.  It gives me a chance to update my blog, to journal, and to set down on written word my thoughts which would otherwise disappear under the haze if busy-ness if I were otherwise in Manila.

Also, if there is one thing that travel has taught me, it is to be thankful for the gifts of the moment.  It brings me to always remember that life is fleeting.  Interactions with people are never fixed.  Sometimes, there are those who will stay in your life forever.  There are those who will just be there for a very brief period in time.  Nevertheless, one person is not necessarily better than the other.  For each person, for each interaction, for each creature, for each experience, one must give thanks.

Travel also reminds me of the art of surrender.  There are often text messages asking me things, of which I have to reply, “I am out of town, will take care of it when I get back.”  I smile smugly to myself, because being out of town gives me the license to not be that superwoman who would have to solve all the problems immediately as if my life depended on it.  Because, frankly, it doesn’t! J

Travel also teaches me the art of letting go, and just to bask in the experience and take as much of it as you can in memory.   This is something I often have difficulty with, even now.  I often wish to bring back the best experiences of what has been.  I hold on very tightly to people I want to stay in my life.  I often use the hashtags #sepanx, #cannotletgo, #withdrawal after major travel.  This is because when being with someone, or a group of people, there is that comfort, predictability and dependency that is shared in the bubble of travel.  Though I don’t intend it, I end up opening myself to my travel companions in ways I will not if I were only in Manila.  There is this exchange of time and energy as people when you are in the travel bubble.  However, this bubble cannot last forever, and often bursts when you get down from the plane.  I often think, “maybe this is the reason why I am given the opportunity to travel with great people…to learn from them, and to bid them til we meet again with no resistance in my heart.”  A good quote I have seen after our Bali trip is: 

Also, it gives me time look back at the different reflection tools I have.  Lately, I have been contending with the finiteness of life.  So many of my friends and relatives have been passing away.  It makes me contend with my own mortality.  As such, wanting to maximize life, I realize that my way of doing this is the following:

1. teaching
2. relationships: family, friends, patient
3. music
4. travel

As such, this episode of taking time off has made me focus on this question:  do each of my tasks support my motto in life?  My thesis statement of what life should be all about?  If the answer is no, then it should be time to prune what is not essential little by little.

This way, when the time comes for me to meet my creator, I can say that I did everything, I experienced the beautiful world and people God has made for me, and I am ready for the ultimate and final travel.