When Travel Gets You Down (and not even Paris can make you happy)

When I was 14, I went on a week-long cruise to Mexico with my high school orchestra and chorus. It was my first time traveling to a country outside America (that wasn’t China), and when I returned I found myself in an odd, unshakeable funk. I couldn’t focus at home, I couldn’t concentrate in class, I had no appetite — and for someone who eats as much and as often as I do, that is a big red light that something is wrong.

I went to see my guidance counselor, who also happened to be a family friend so he knew me quite well, and he explained I was simply coming off a travel high. I don’t think he quite used those exact words — guidance counselors are probably discouraged from using the word high so liberally — but the concept was completely new to me. How could I be on Cloud Nine one day, then crash and feel lower than dirt the next? It took me two weeks to get over the travel blues.

Oddly enough, in all my travels since, I’d never again encountered the soul-crushing post-travel crash. Not after gorgeous weekends in Bali or Vietnam; not after an adventurous week in southern Thailand, not after five weeks in Australia – all trips which were obviously far more fun and memorable than a heavily-chaperoned high school trip to Cozumel.

Until I came back from Ireland.

Even after my first trip to the Emerald Isle — a two-week adventure in January 2010 that I anticipated with all the excitement of a kitten on crack — I somehow came back home refreshed, not depressed, and ready to tackle my senior thesis and the end of my college career.

Yet this time, after only six days in Ireland, I came back a total, absolute MESS.

Flying back into Paris, I wanted to be anywhere but on that plane. I looked out on the City of Lights and tried (unsuccessfully) to hold back the tears — I don’t know if there’s anyone in the history of travel who has been more unhappy to fly into Paris.

The travel crash was BAD this time. Over the next few days, I would spontaneously burst into tears all over the city: at work, at the library, in the supermarket between the rice and pasta aisles (I mean, I get overwhelmed by all the options on a good day). I didn’t want to see anyone or do anything; I had just enough energy to lie in bed and watch reruns of 30 Rock.

The things I usually appreciated about living in Paris, I suddenly detested. I hated all the Haussmann buildings, I hated all the buttery pastries everywhere; I hated how everyone looks so put together all the damn time.

The fact that I still can’t speak or read much French made me feel even more helpless, and hopeless. I knew there were people who would give their right arm to gladly take my place, which made me feel even worse, but there it was — I didn’t want to be in Paris; I didn’t want to learn French anymore. It took me a week to finally unpack.

But after almost six days of living in what felt like the fifth circle of hell, Monday finally came round again — and just like that, the wall disappeared. Classes, work, volunteering at the ALP: it all felt normal, routine, and non-breakdown-inducing once more, as it should be.

Why?

Why did this trip leave me with the emotional control of a two-year-old when no other trip — other than Mexico — has? I can come up with a few reasons:

Expectations were set too high. And then something TERRIBLE happened on the trip.

• In 2004, as we were disembarking from the ship in Miami, I left my bags for just a second and my purse was stolen. It was soon found in a nearby bathroom, with all $300 stolen out of it. This wasn’t just any spending money — it was YEARS of tooth fairy money; birthday money, and Chinese New Year hong baos that I’d been saving for a special occasion. To have kept that money for so many years and then ultimately not been able to spend it, all due to a simple mistake on my part — that hurt more than the actual cash loss.

• A situation with parallel similarities happened in Ireland. The details are personal, but suffice it to say it was a.) negative enough to ruin half the wedding for me and b.) mostly my fault. This was the first wedding I’ve ever been to (as an adult), and I’d been looking forward to it since Mike asked me to be his plus-one — over a year ago. Not to mention, this was the first time I was going to see Mike in over two months, and we only had six days together. To have anticipated this event for over a year and then end up upset and angry for half the weekend, all due to a stupid incident on my part — the guilt hurts more than missing out on parts of the wedding.

I had nothing to look forward to.

• After my trip to Mexico, I had to return to the hell that was freshman year of high school as an awkward Asian teenager (I was so naive that a highlight of the cruise was being able to order bottomless Shirley Temples. I was shocked, absolutely shocked, to find out afterwards that people had taken advantage of the Mexican drinking age to go nuts on tequila). It was my first taste of real travel (again, discounting China) and I was willing to brave the sharks and swim back to Cozumel just to not have to face algebra, college scouts, and popularity contests again.

• In 2011, after every awesome trip and adventure, I still managed to always come home excited because I knew I had another trip to look forward to (I mean, I was traveling every month!). This year I’m not able to travel as much due to my job; I also decided early on to make this a “travel less, save more” year — which means I don’t know the next time I’ll travel outside the country. I’m planning for Croatia in July, but nothing is set in stone yet. And that’s giving me French cabin fever.

So…long-distance is harder than I expected.

• I have no Mexican parallel story for this one, as I wasn’t in a relationship then (hell, I hadn’t even been HUGGED by anyone of the opposite sex when I was 14. I told you, I was awkward).

For the record, this isn’t even my first LDR — and I didn’t find the first one that hard, so I thought a second go would be even easier. In fact, for the first couple months in Paris, I was raving about how eaaasy long distance had been so far and how wellll it was working out (how silllly of me). After all, our last meetup was just a weekend in Sydney and I didn’t turn into a blubbering idiot after that, right?

Well I didn’t because I had a giant MOVE TO PARIS to occupy my time and mind immediately afterward. This time, coming back to my lonely, asylum-white studio — after six days of nice hotels and B&Bs with Mike — felt even worse than if I’d actually come home to an asylum. I mean, at least they still get some human contact there. I came home knowing I wasn’t getting a goodnight kiss for another two months.

As weird or insensitive as it sounds, I had forgotten how much I needed Mike. In Paris I keep my walls of independence up — no thanks, I can handle everything in the entire world by myself thanks — and letting them down for a week felt…good. I’d forgotten how nice it was to have someone there in person to look after you, to give you hugs, to wake up next to…that kind of support is just not the same on a pixelated Skype call. And of course, just as I was getting used to having Mike around again, I had to go home alone.

Getting out of the dumps

I’ll admit, five days isn’t that long — I’ve seen much worse crashes (both travel and “other”). Of course, they felt like much longer. But I found a few things that kept me sane and prevented the five days from turning into ten or twenty:

Eat your Comfort Food, guilt-free. Baguettes, schmaguettes. I spent a week eating nothing but Frosties and five cups of English Breakfast Tea per day. And I have no regrets. If my comfort food was fried steak, you better believe I’d have clogged up my arteries with a herd of the stuff. Counting calories is for stronger people. Times like this, you just can’t argue with food that makes your stomach AND head happy.

Host CouchSurfers (or, Have people come over). Before I’d left on my trip, I’d agreed to host two American students immediately after I returned from Ireland. I thought I’d regret it as I wanted nothing more than to be alone, but once they arrived I was glad I’d made the arrangement — having them around forced me to put on a smile, talk about something besides how sad I was, and focus on a new subject — in this case, helping them with an itinerary so they could make the most of Paris in two days.

*Note, this isn’t the same as making outside plans with people — those are easy to cancel. When you invite someone to your place, you feel much more obligated to follow through — and also to clean up your apartment!

Okay, try to get outside. Can be hard to do, but no one can deny it works. Big thanks go to a certain English friend, who badgered me relentlessly (and I mean that in the nicest way possible) until I agreed to meet her for brunch. It’s such a simple way to feel better, once you muster the energy to leave your flat — I got to eat proper food, discover a new neighborhood of Paris, and remind myself I have real-life friends, not just the ones on Skype and Tweetdeck. I believe later that afternoon, I bought a baguette.

Call your Best Friend. There is a best friend clause that states when you are in emotional distress, you are allowed to call whenever you want, as many times you want, and talk for however long you want, even though you’re just crying and repeating the same story over and over. This is a fact.

Mike handled the incessant calling like a champ, but I needed my female besties too. One such friend in Arizona upheld her duties with great understanding, and during one of my numerous blubbering phone calls, made the one single observation that made me feel better than I had in days:

“Not every day can be a win.”

Which leads to the last thing I learned from all this:

Some days are going to suck. Just accept it. This happens to everyone: pre-travel, mid-travel, post-travel. If you must wallow, then go ahead and wallow, and don’t feel bad about it. Take the crappy days and wait for them to pass.

I won’t tell you to force yourself to go out and be social and try to be happy. If you can’t, then you can’t. No amount of phone calls and positive thinking and “you can do it!”s will help. In the end, all you can do is just wait and let time do its thing. And accepting that fact helps, because fighting it may only make you feel worse. Don’t forget to stock up on the Frosties.