A Different Kind of Journey
Certainly, not the one I expected
I was just re-reading a piece I posted 10 days into the new decade, in what seems like another lifetime ago, January 2020. That was a good two months before Covid changed the world forever.
We were fixing to embark on our second trip of the new year/decade. I’d mentioned that it appeared to be shaping up to be a year of journeys. Well, yes and no.
That second trip was going to be to Virginia Beach. We took that journey, but as the year played out, we’ve only been on one subsequent trip since — to the same place this past fall.
By autumn, it was a big deal to be going anywhere! But our house needed cleaning. We decided to have cleaners in to do the whole place, while we left for two days to let the dust settle before returning. So, we went to the beach. We brought our own sheets, and only ate take-out food. We’d learned to be super careful.
Otherwise, we’ve been hunkered down here in our new home in Falmouth, Virginia, throughout this pandemic. Falmouth is a little historical area that is technically part of Fredericksburg, though it’s in a different county than Fredericksburg proper.
We live a couple miles up the road from where George Washington grew up. We’re also a couple miles from where my great grandfather, Martin Hager, once a soldier in the Union Army, fought at the second battle of Fredericksburg, in the American Civil War. For a history buff like myself, this is kind of like being in heaven. Not such a bad place to be “stuck” in.
I took a little trip last month up to Gettysburg for a socially distanced battlefield tour with some good friends, but that’s about the extent of physical journeys over the past 13 months.
I was going to take a trip today up to my old stomping grounds in South Jersey, to bid farewell to my good friend of many years, Harry. I learned last Thursday Harry had died the week before from Covid-related complications.
The grave-site service would require social-distancing and masks, but when I looked on my map app I realized the drive would be 4 1/2 hours each way — much too far for me to drive in one day. Turns out they are also “Zooming” the service, so I’ll still be able to attend virtually, to bid my old pal adieu.
This morning I traveled, via Zoom, to a meeting in Barbados, where I’d been asked to speak. This kind of sums up the different world I live in today, compared to the world I lived in when I wrote that piece last January.
Almost immediately after Covid showed up last March, I found myself speaking at a meeting in Seattle, Washington — from the comfort of the same office I am writing this story in. I was celebrating 40 years clean that week, but couldn’t do it at my home group here in Falmouth, as in-person meetings had all gotten shuttered that same week.
A cousin who’s also in the same program I’m in sent me a link to a private Facebook group based out of Seattle, where I first learned about Zoom meetings. They had the first Covid-driven 12-Step Zoom meeting up and running already — the virus had hit the Seattle area first in this country.
I’d immediately hit it off with the person chairing that meeting. They’d insisted that I speak for my anniversary that following Saturday night. The virtual set-up made it possible for many family and friends to attend my celebration, who otherwise would never have been able to come down to Falmouth for my planned and canceled in-person celebration.
I quickly saw the virtue in virtual meetings!
I became really good friends with the chair of that meeting, though we’d never met in person. There were long “meetings-after-the-meetings”, and they were fascinated by my in-depth knowledge about the history of that Fellowship. I was fascinated by their mastery of the technology that made Zoom meetings possible, and enthralled with their enthusiasm for recovery and thirst for knowledge.
Jin-ah died, suddenly, right after their 30th birthday (they preferred they and them pronouns) in a tragic accident 5 months later. I initially thought ‘how can I be so affected by their passing, I never even met them’ - and yet, I was. I grieved their passing pretty hard.
Our souls had touched on a deep and profound level, even though we’d never met, physically. The loss I felt went deep. My tears were certainly real, as was that hollow feeling of no longer having their friendship in my life, a bond that had come to mean a lot to me. That loss needed to be grieved.
Travel and meeting people have taken on a much different connotation these days.
Why, just in the short month and ten days of this year, I’ve been all over the world without ever leaving Falmouth. I’ve spoken in Aruba, Iran, Egypt, New York City, Boston, Las Vegas, and today, Barbados. Next week, I’ll be speaking in Berlin and Northern California.
I sponsor four people in the United Kingdom, a guy in Texas, and one in West Virginia, in addition to the three I sponsor, locally. I meet with each of them virtually, once a week, to go over step-work. The world has become a much smaller place!
Tomorrow, I will go back to work like I usually do — from the comforts of the same office I Zoom all over the world from. I’ve been working virtually since last March, and probably will continue to do so for quite some time to come.
It’s become the new normal, but I must say — I do not miss the old hour and a half each way commute I used to make to the physical workplace up in Washington, DC! Working virtually is much less wear and tear, on me and my car! Plus, I’m saving three hours a day that I used to consume, commuting.
And I am actually more connected to the world today than I have ever been.
Indeed, the world I knew and could imagine in January 2020, has changed forever, and not necessarily for the worse — it’s simply different. Much good has come out of this strange time we’re living through.
While I mourn the losses, I do embrace the adventures and, most of all, the connections.
