mind over travel

I used to like travelling to distant countries, as long as they didn’t deviate too far from our western way of living. But even my trip to Indonesia was one I made with gusto. Now those times seem distant.

I have booked a second trip to Turkey. It’s actually not for fun: I’m going to have my teeth fixed there. A hard decision to make. Although it is much cheaper over there than it is over here, it meant having to travel to Turkey. And that I really didn’t look forward to.

The First trip has been made. I now know what to expect, more or less. But still the pending trip fills me with anxiety and stress. Again I really don’t want to go. I want it over. Why is that?

I thought I didn’t need to go to the same spot every year, like they say autistic people do. But my first instinct is to do exactly that. Go to the same place. Last year I followed my wives’ idea of not going there but booking something different. This year I booked the all too familiar place well in advance, so as to be certain that we can be there at the time we’ve always been there. How boring is that?

In the past I’ve travelled not only to Indonesia, but also the US, the UK, France, Germany, Luxemburg, Italy, Australia and drove across most of New Zealand by myself. So why is it becoming so much harder to cross the border and discover new places?

Is it age? Or is it because I’ve come to be more in touch with my true feelings and I’ve actually always been apprehensive of travelling to unfamiliar places? I’m not sure, yet.

It’s not like I don’t enjoy going anywhere new at all. I do. But I find myself wanting to go back there the next year, mainly because it now is a place that I know. On the other hand I realize that going to the place where we’ve been going for ten years now, might get a bit boring because we’ve done everything we’d want to do there, and we might enjoy something different far more.

I guess it’s the same old difference between feeling and thinking. I feel most relaxed at a place I know well. But my mind tells me I must discover en find new interesting places. And when I do, I do enjoy it. So which one should I obey? Mind or heart?