âAre you going to write about this trip?â asked a woman on my yoga retreat upon hearing I was a writer.
âNo,â I laughed. âIâm not a travel writer. I mean, Iâll write about it if I have some grand epiphany or something.â
âOh you will,â said Maya, our instructorâwho was also my instructor when I did my 200-hour yoga teacher training a few years ago, and who knows me well.
Touche.
I am a person who LOVES intense, short-term bonding experiences where all pretenses are dropped because youâre starting off with a common experience or interest. I mean, come onâIâm an Aquarius, writer and therapist. I am not a small talk person, I am a tell-me-your-life-story-and-Iâll-tell-you-mine kinda person.
Pair that with removing you from your everyday and then throw in going to one of the most gorgeous and unique places in the world.
When I was growing up, we typically did the same two family vacations a yearâColorado for skiing and then somewhere warm in the summer. Disney World when I was younger, Caribbean islands as I got older. London and Rome as an adult.
My mom lived at home until she got married at 33, and Iâm not sure she had ever left the country before getting married. My dad, on the other hand, was a helicopter pilot in the Vietnam War, and so, had seen much of the world in his training, and considered most of those itches scratched. Iâm listening to Nora McInerneyâs Bad Vibes Only right now (which, btw, is very good), and her dad, also a Vietnam vet, felt the same.
So, when I heard about far-flung locales like the GalĂĄpagos Islands, I certainly never considered these were places I might actually go to one day. They felt like travel lore to me of places that might not actually exist.
I was so so excited for this trip. I took Spanish lessons. I read about the Galapagos. Usually I let vacations sneak up on me and donât let myself get too excited. This also comes from some travel when my mom was sick and then being convinced something would happen to my dad and I wouldnât be able to goâand actually, I had a wild dream last night, since writing these words, that I was on some amazing trip that included Sweden, Fiji, and I donât remember where else, and I had to fly home to take care of my parents, soooâŚit runs deep.
I had not taken a true vacation where I fully unplugged since before covid, so I am truly unsure I had ever looked forward to a vacation so much!! Plus, omg, the Galapagos?! I remember learning about the Galapagos in high school and college Spanish (I was a Spanish minor) and it really just looking other-worldly.
This is Antartica, not the Galapagos, BUT this is one of my fave college professors, Jack Child, who was a scholar of Latin American history, geopolitics, etc. He also went to Antartica something like 15 times?! I wish I remembered more of his class but I just remember being INCREDIBLY overwhelmedâI was an 18-year-old white chick from NJ who had placed into a 300-level class that was mixed with a 600-level grad sectionâŚof native speakers. WAY WAY WAY in over my head. Anyway, I do vaguely remember learning about the Galapagos and man, now I wish Iâd paid more attention and realized what a gift having him as a professor was.
Per usual, I digress!
I was really looking forward to this trip and, I mean, CondĂŠ Nast Traveler called it one of the wonders of the world! (Itâs apparently not an official New Wonder, which I just learned about verifying if it was a world wonder or not.)
But, for once, I had zero expectations other than: chill out, do yoga, see cool shit.
Check, check, check.
It was unlike vacations of the past five or so years where I was desperately escaping from my real life and really depending on these trips to heal me and putting so much pressure on these trips to be magical. Yes, I also saw some cool shit during those years, but I was so lost in the misery in my own head that I felt really detached from it, just willing myself to ENJOY THESE COOL PLACES THEODORAâŚand beating myself up for when I didnât. âCome on, you are in this amazing place that most people would die to seeâŚand you donât care??â
My therapist has said, âwherever you go, there you are,â and I roll my eyes so, so hard at itâŚbecause itâs true. I canât leave my brain at home (even if sometimes it does feel like I have!), so my feelings always hitch an unwelcome ride, which is probably why I have to pay for overweight baggage.
But this time, I didnât need this trip to be magical.
And so it was.
I met cool people.
I saw cool shit, such as more tortoises than humans, blue footed boobies, and I SWAM WITH PENGUINS! (And lil baby sharks too.)
I learned more about nature thanâŚmaybe ever in my life? Our guide, Luis, was basically a walking encyclopedia of the islands. No matter what, the Galapagos would have been cool, but I cannot imagine seeing it without a guide and getting all the context to why what we were seeing was so cool/important.
I also have to shout out the retreat company I went throughâThe Travel Yogi. (None of this is sponsored, I just loved them!!!) Everything was planned out for us, and everythingâfrom what we sawâwent flawlessly. I just couldnât stop thinking about how we had to worry about ZERO logistics while there, other than what to pack or wear for the day.
If youâre curious about the actual yoga: this was more of a touring retreat with a side of yoga than the other way around, which is perfect for seeing a place like the Galapagos. It honestly would be kind of a shame to go so far and to somewhere so special without seeing more of it.
And a shoutout to where we stayed, MonteMar. It is a small property in terms of rooms (I think it can sleep about eight total between the two villas), but on 43 acres of landâINCLUDING A COFFEE PLANTATION. I WAS IN HEAVEN! The owners, Reyna and Roberto, were so thorough in everything for our experience from even having an outlet that had USB-C chargers (I am not sure why that is the little detail I was the most impressed by?!) to preparing special meals for us if we had dietary restrictions.
Reyna is nothing but human sparkle. She was so fun to be around and just had infectious energyâand a devilish little glint in her eyes when weâd lock eyes and laugh at the same thing. She is kind, passionate, and BRILLIANT: she even has a Ted Talk where she talks about how they built MonteMar to reduce their human impact on the islands. Every single material the villas are made of comes from the Galapagos, and they engineered the villas to be situated in the optimal location to not need any electrical heat or air conditioning when the sun and wind can do that!
I wrote the following on Instagram last week:
Life is so fucking fragile, and this morning I canât stop thinking about how badly I wanted to escape it for so long, to escape feeling pain. Last week, when I was on this trip of a lifetime, I couldnât stop thinking about how incredibly lucky I was to be able to go on this tripâand to be in a place to actually be able to really enjoy it without depression lingering over my head the way it had on previous vacations like this.
And itâs what I keep returning to. How choosing life meant I get to experience things like this and things I havenât even dreamed of yet.
Iâm going to start using this also to share some more mental health psychoeducation/service-y stuff including hopefully some interviews I want to share directly without having to pitchâor giving some of the story here first.
The things on my list right now: ketamine, how to find a therapist/resources, how to tell your therapist that something might not be working in your relationship with them.
Hit reply to this email or comment below to let me know if you have anything in particular about any of the above that you want to hearâand what other topics you want to hear more about! Also, re:ketamine: are you interested in hearing about my personal experience? Facts? Both?
I love this! - "How choosing life meant I get to experience things like this and things I havenât even dreamed of yet." But, in response to your question, I'd love to hear about both your own experience sand the studies, with ketamine and anything else.