Thirty, Flirty…Thriving?

Losing myself (and my phone) abroad

I turned 30 a few days ago in Barcelona. I'd been looking forward to it (or trying to) for the better part of the year. Getting to 30 was always a part of the plan. Getting to 30 how I did — divorced, unemployed, and unstable — was not.

So as the clock ticked mercilessly down, I thought "Let's at least make a trip of it. Go somewhere undeniably incredible, where I'll have an undeniably good time." I still had a job when I started planning the trip, and when I got laid off, my first thought was, "I can't go anymore." My parents — lovely, supportive — talked me down from my panic and told me to go. Go and love every minute of it. I decided to try. Then, midway through my 2-week trip, in Porto, Portugal, my bag got stolen. Phone wallet, sunglasses, earbuds... even my new fucking lipstick. Gone.

I was with my roommate, a bottle of red wine empty between us, having just watched the sunset in a park full of strangers. It had been beautiful, and the night was young and crisp, and we had made friends with two other tourists, one from Spain and another from Mexico, like us. In my tipsiness, I’d launched into a confession about how disconnected I was feeling from life, from my own thoughts. I’d said I needed a break from social media, or perhaps something more radical: completely disconnecting. Time flew by, they invited us to join them for (more) drinks, and as we stood up to leave, I got my wish. While I’d been talking my new friends' ears off, my phone had been taken, along with everything else, and I was instantly and unexpectedly disconnected. For the next leg of the trip — a full week — I tried my hardest not to let it ruin my mood. I failed over and over again.

We were joined by another of my best friends, and I wanted her and all of us to have a good time. My birthday was days away, and I thought it ridiculous that something as material as a phone or a credit card could ruin something as intangibly special as a trip with my best friends. The trip wasn't ruined, far from it, but my ability to enjoy it fully was.

For 7 days, I found myself stealing my friends’ phones for slivers of online time — a minute here, a minute there, whatever I could get. Like a drug addict itching for their next hit, I got my dopamine by posting and reposting whenever the moment allowed. I couldn't help myself, and I'm embarrassed by it. But I am what I am and I guess all of us are too, acting perfectly happy online while being imperfectly human off.

I brought home more than just photos taken off my friend's phones: memories, takeaways, insights, knickknacks & half a dozen souvenirs that were a joy to pick out for my loved ones. I brought back the certainty that I have two great friends who were my lifeguards and stopped me from drowning in my negativity and, quite literally, from getting lost. I felt like a burden, and yet they carried me the whole way through, without complaint. And I brought back something else. Something raw and new: a sense of what needs to change — not externally, but deep inside of me — so that when things don't go my way again (which they won't, because that's just life) I can endure them better. I can be my own lifeguard. Watching out from the shore, ready to jump into the rocky waters to drag me out, bloated, blue, and shaking from withdrawals, but still, luckily, breathing.