You’re Not a Wanderer or a Homebody: What Are You?
If you’ve ever sacrificed anything for travel or sacrificed travel for anything else, you probably fall somewhere in the middle.
The sun is finally out in my neighborhood of San Francisco — and it’s been a long, cloudy year so far.
As of yesterday, there have been streaks of sunlight inching their way through my living room in the late afternoon, birds singing in the trees outside and a huge paint-can splatter of blue sky just beyond that.
It may be because of the particularly dismal weather in my neighborhood, which is wrought with a teeth-gritting cloud of marine layer throughout most of the year (when it’s not rainy season — then it just rains), but I get the sensation of excitement and possibility whenever I encounter a sunny day here.
And so, for a day and a half, that feeling has been squirming around inside my head, taking shape in various forms. The sun is making me excited to grow my writing business, the sun is making me want to get out for a longer-than-normal hike — and the sun is making me envious of other people.
Say what?
I know, I know. It makes no sense, this envy, because I’m finally getting the sunshine I’ve been yearning for this year, and yet, here it is, that envy: big and green and ugly. So what am I envious of?
It’s petty, really: Within the month, my mother will go on a trip to Italy, my mother-in-law on a trip to France and Spain and my sister on a trip to Japan.
I’m beyond excited for them all. They’re getting out and exploring the world, each person visiting places they have never been, preparing to interact with strangers, taste new food, breathe different air. It hasn’t been so long since I’ve done these things myself, since I just returned from a trip to Spain in May (the fact of which makes my envy even more shameful), and I am genuinely happy that the people I love are traveling.
And yet.
And yet, here I stand on this beautiful sunny day in Northern California wasting my good fortune, wishing I was doing what they were doing. Wishing I was somewhere else. You see, I want to take the long-haul flight to Japan to see a tea house for the first time, I want to worry about the quality of my French and sample different wines in a humble vintner’s basement in Italy. I, like Veruca Salt, want all those things for myself, and knowing that others are going to have them and I’m not is, well, annoying.
The Wanderlust Gene
Research from years ago pointed to a gene allele (variation) that helps to explain why certain people seem to get the travel bug more than others. There’s an actual genetic variation — called DRD4–7r — that makes 20 percent of the population prone to more exploration. Though there are many other ways of looking at the impact of a single gene variation, the possibility remains that the desire to travel and to covet the travel experiences of others could literally be written into your body’s code.
Thinking that it could be because of some gene that I feel restless and desire to get out and explore helps to put me at ease, at least a little bit — even if it’s not clear-cut science and even if I’m not one of the 20 percent who has this allele. But just the idea that there’s nothing wrong with those of us who desire to be elsewhere, who wish they could get out and explore, that’s good to know.
Making choices
Obviously, a single allele can’t possibly tell the whole story. First, there’s a host of other genes inside all of us (not to mention experiences and opportunities) that help shape who we are, and second, there are plenty of people who love the idea of constant travel but don’t actually do it.
Everywhere, digital nomads are rejoining, Of course you can do it, anyone can. But I’m not so sure of that.
For a select few, the nomadic life fits perfectly, or at least close enough to perfectly, and they stay on the road for years, loving the freedom of it. For others, home life fits perfectly, and things like kids, homes, dogs, gardens, chickens, family game nights, certain careers take obvious precedence over travel.
You see, these two things — wanting to explore and wanting stability — seem to be at odds in this polarized world of ours in which we need to pin everyone’s personality back to its core, in this world where we pinpoint genetic differences to define our personalities (my bad).
The truth is, wanderlust-ism and homebody-ism aren’t mutually exclusive. Many people actually fall somewhere between the two, and it’s for these people who decision-making puts things at stake.
Everyone must make choices at various points during their life. Making choices, at its core, is the act of deciding to do one thing instead of another. Maybe the decision to take your life on the road overrides your desire for a traditional home, or maybe the decision to have a child replaces the desire to independently bike your way through Asia.
For some, such decisions are obvious. Those people who fall into the two categories: wanderer, homebody.
But what about the rest of us? The rest of us are constantly deciding between things that, no matter what it is, feel like a sacrifice. Vacation or new refrigerator? New Zealand or trip home to see mom? Two-week stay at a villa in the French countryside or pay for kids’ college? (Kidding!)
For example, three years ago, my then-boyfriend and I decided to get a dog. Amazingly enough, it was my idea, and I pushed and pushed until the puppy was in the back of our car. But I’m also the one who pushes and pushes for extended trips — the kind that employers hate and homebodies don’t understand — that go on for weeks. I’m the one who wants to move to Europe just because, why not? But I also wanted a dog. I wanted the friendly tail-wag to come home to at the end of the day. I wanted a running companion on the rare occasion I went for an actual run. I wanted a home life, in a sense. But the desire to move abroad and to take long trips never left me. The desire for those things are still a part of who I am, and there are moments in which I long for the ability to go and do whatever I want. But I’m a person who chose to have a home life. I’m a person who chose to put down roots. I even take the dog, who I love like a third family member, on runs now. These are choices I’ve made.
But that doesn’t mean that every day I still don’t wish I could have it all.
Other people I know sacrifice children for travel. (Er, they don’t actually make child sacrifices, they sacrifice the decision to have kids in the first place.) Others sacrifice travel for the thrill of a career or the love of having a solid group of friends. Others sacrifice travel for money because, let’s face it, traveling costs something, and having both travel and a home life means your money has to go twice as far. Others sacrifice having any meaningful possessions at all to be able to travel anywhere at a moment’s notice.
All of these, especially for the in-betweeners, represent their priorities, as all decisions tend to do. But if the outsider takes the decision at face value, they’re missing what’s behind it, what the in-betweener is giving up: that thing that they would otherwise — if things were different — love to have.
That doesn’t mean they’re not happy with their decision. It doesn’t necessarily mean they are, either. It just means that for some people deciding between traveling and staying put seems to come with higher costs.
So yes, right now, at this moment in my life, I am living with decisions I have made, and as a result, I’m not in a position to travel anywhere at the moment. But, for me, it’s just a season. And maybe that’s true for you too. Perhaps soon the pendulum will swing the other way and you will sacrifice something to do with your home life so you can do a big trip — definitely somewhere really obscure, and for a long time, after such a long hiatus.
In the meantime, the longing for travel, and the envy of others who are in the thick of it, will probably still be here.
And that’s okay.
