Travelers

The purple door swung shut behind me, and my friend nearly ran into me as I stopped in my tracks. Morgan was standing at the reception counter. I hadn't expected to ever see her again. She was dressed in her punk rock ensemble that I had come to recognize in the last 24 hours. I thought she had got on a bus to Cork, but here she was, half a day later, standing in our hostel again.

I greeted her, and she looked up, bright green headphones standing out from her black shirt and jacket. "What are you doing here?" I asked. "Weren't you headed to Cork?"

"I'm picking up my bags," she responded, "I spent the day walking all around Dublin, but I'm getting my bus now."

We talked for maybe five minutes more before saying goodbye one last time. I waved to her, wished her a safe journey and walked away from the reception desk, and away from this almost friend.

And I felt sad.

Well not sad, just not happy. I'd been meeting a lot of people in the last few days, holding conversations with them for a few minutes before parting ways, sharing a room for a night or two. It has been hard for me to wrap my head around this way of meeting people. I suppose that people who travel all the time are used to it. Maybe.

But saying hello and goodbye so many times in just a short period of time feels like it has turned my insides out.

Day one I talked with a Parisian during breakfast, and met three really awesome college students studying in Galway with whom I spent a glorious day on the Aran Islands. Days two and three saw me eating breakfast with a girl from California studying in Dublin and two girls from Atlanta studying in London. A friend of mine spent an entire bus tour talking with an Alaskan who had traveled the world, and I talked briefly with an Australian, who, too has travelled the world. I've temporarily joined a group of traveling retirees as they laughed and sang their way through Dublin. I spent a night talking with a Swede and a German in my hostel. And I've shared a room with one really sweet woman traveling for the first time overseas for 4 nights.

And I've said goodbye to these people. Sometimes without a second thought, I've waved to them as I've walked away. Sometimes it's more difficult: the woman I saw four days in a row and shared stories with, the german who seemed like a friend I could have had, the rowdy group of old friends. Their presence in my life seems more weighty. More important. Though I can't really put my finger on why. It puts me in mind of that one song from Wicked the musical. Yeah, you all know which one I'm talking about, "I've heard it said, that people come into our lives for a reason, bringing something we must learn..."

So that's part of it. But also I find it so strange, (and I know, I know, it should be so obvoius) that people travel to these cities--they come from all walks of life, they bring all their own histories, and these strangers come together for a brief moment before moving apart again. We move through the same places, see the same things, and, yet, our experiences are different.

Yesterday morning, the Swede in my dorm slipped out silently, getting a head start on the day. She'd ride the hop on hop off bus tour--something I did the day before. In Galway, my conversations with the other guests at the hostel would often sound like, "Did you go to the Cliff's yet?""Yes! I went yesterday, it's gorgeous." "Oh, really? I haven't gone yet. I'm going tomorrow." All different people, doing the same things, all different experiences.

Do you remember the moment when you realize that other human beings are just as crazy and complicated and filled up on the inside as you are?

On another bus ride, my friend turned to me and said, "Conversation is just so interesting."

"Do you mean the fact that we can open our mouths and make noises and other people understand us?" I asked, curious about what she meant.

"Well, yes. But also that we talk to strangers--talk to people who we will never see again," She said.

We give a little of our time, a little of our stories, and in return we get a little of their life. It is an exchange. Constant throughout our lifetime. I once heard a children's story about kids on trains with suitcases and every time someone new boarded the train they exchanged something in their suitcases. By the end their suitcases were full of weird and interesting things, pieces of these people they had met along the way. Sometime the people stayed on the train a long time, and sometimes they got right off. But the exchange always happened.