Sorry Japan, you’re gonna have to wait
“Hey thanks a lot for all your hard work. Now get out please.”
About a month ago, my former employer politely and unexpectedly told me to leave my work laptop right where it was and leave the building immediately because “my role” was part of a company-wide layoff. Uhmmmmm. Ok. I was simultaneously completely shocked and totally relieved. Fortunately I had already been actively looking around for a new gig, so I felt mildly prepared.
Literally sneaking back to my desk and gathering a few key possessions, I walked out to the street in SF, hopped onto an eerily empty mid-morning BART back to the East Bay, and started replying to texts from my former work buddies. The general themes were “HOLY SHIT!” , “WTF?” and “CONGRATS!”
I got home and sat down. Now what? My initial thought was to get a new job immediately because this is what people do after all. I instinctively (automatically?) started to stress because I have a mortgage, and a family, and a giant Taiwanese street dog… and the courteous severance package I got was not going to last very long.
OK, let’s get back to work immediately. HURRY UP AND GO BACK TO WORK! my mind screamed at me.
Hold on there big fella. This is a good economy, and you have some fine skillz, and look… here’s 5 recruiters that reached out to you just today… why don’t you take a few weeks, not jump into anything, and go do something amazing? DO IT! It’s fucking adventure time goddamit! Travel somewhere. Anywhere!
My gorgeous, perfect, amazing wife Aly recognized this opportunity as well, and was totally cool with me going on a trip. All by myself. God bless her.
So, with a little bit of Google-fu, I found the most ridiculously cheap airfare to Tokyo ($525, including travel insurance) and I just did it… purchased the flights. Departing in about 2 weeks.
A solo adventure
Why Japan? Why the hell not Japan! It’s far away, exotic, gorgeous, and I hadn’t been there since the mid 90’s. The thought of backpacking through a foreign land with a rail pass and a translate app, while staying in weird capsule hotels, buddhist temples, and badass ryokans was the most exciting thing that I could possibly imagine. I’d go to hot springs, ride bullet trains, spend hours sitting quietly in Zen temples… in short, things that would be really difficult if not impossible to do if I were accompanied with the kids.
I wanted to travel light, take my big Nikon SLR and photograph the shit out of the country and the people. I was going to journal all of it, and write long eloquent prose (with some likely cuss words) about the entire experience.
Most importantly, I was looking forward to reflecting, meditating, and getting inspired about what to do next. This was going to be perfect! I stumbled across this great post on Medium about how awesome it is to travel solo, and everything clicked.
I planned the hell out of this trip, dissecting suggested itineraries I found online and in books. I contacted friends who had travelled there in the last few years, bookmarking dozens of sites, Evernote clipping hidden little spots, drawing maps, and meticulously planning train rides and places to stay. This was my new temp job, and I took it on like I take on any challenge: head on, completely obsessed, and like a godamn happy maniac.
With just a few days before leaving, I had one more adventure to do first: snowboarding in Colorado… a trip I had planned months earlier. This was something that I was looking forward to for months! An adventure all of its own.
And then, broken shoulder
If while in Snomass Colorado you happened to have seen an idiot in a mustard helmet flying down a mountain wayyyyyy too fast, followed by a spectacular crash which left him face down and moaning in pain, you might have thought “hmm, that guy has no fucking clue what he’s doing.”
You’d be right and wrong.
Clearly in the seconds right before I broke my shoulder I had no fucking clue what I was doing… but I’ve been snowboarding for almost 20 years, and never hurt myself. What the hell got into me? This was careless and silly, and not only did I hurt my shoulder, my ankle was busted up too, and I could not put any weight on it.
The nice people at the Aspen Snowmass medical clinic (conveniently located right downstairs from one of the bars) took some x-rays, and calmly told me that I had a greater tuberosity fracture.
“Here’s a sling. Nothing else we can do for now. When you get home next week, go to an orthopedic doctor. Take it easy.”
I went to the bar upstairs, had a few cocktails, met up with my friends, and I was completely delusional about how hurt I wasn’t. It could have been the booze, or the altitude, or the sunny weather, but I thought this was just a little booboo that would, at most, cause me to use a rolling suitcase instead of a backpack.
Bring on the pain
Little booboo my ass. I could not sleep that night. I could barely get in or out of bed. My head was pounding, my ankle puffed up like a bouncy castle, and all I could think about was Japan. My purpose, my goal… shattered! The key to discovering what I should do next was gone.
I woke up the next day (ha! woke up… truth is I didn’t really sleep), moved my flight home up a day, and hobbled to the airport. The flight from Aspen to SFO was excruciatingly painful and uncomfortable. Arriving at SFO, I had to carry my snowboard gear and my backpack to the curb… approximately 50 feet to where Aly and the girls were picking me up. That shit HURT.
Once I got home, nothing got better. Same headache, unable to walk, and barely able to put on a t-shirt without wincing in pain. But now I had my beautiful kids and Aly to help me, and that was so incredible. You know… put things into perspective, yaddi yaddi yah.
Reality
The day before I was supposed to depart to Japan, I call up the good folks at Cheapoair (great deals, TERRIBLE NAME) and got my flights cancelled. I then sent a few emails to the places I booked to sleep, and slowly unwound all my meticulous plans. Did I mention I got flight insurance? I never get flight insurance. That was a stroke of good luck.
A few hours later, all was cancelled. Trip officially not happening.
Here’s the funny thing: I was OK with it. Really. This shit happened, and now I gotta deal with it, and that’s that.
How? I’ve been practicing daily meditation for the last several months, and I’m completely 100% convinced that it’s transformed me into being able to deal with life better. Where in the past I would have been angry and frustrated, I’ve come to understand that this is just a temporary setback, and… this is going to sound corny: I got Japan right here at home. I don’t need to go away from my family to figure out what to do next.
The actual Japan will be still be there in 6 months or 14 or whenever it is that I get to go again, but for now I will be chillin’ at home finding ways to be creative and stay positive.
Like writing this post, for example :) — This was super fun. Thanks for reading it.