September 16, 2022
Happy Friday, travelers!
I’ve decided what Country #25 will be. If all goes as planned, I’ll be wheels-up in December between the marathon and Christmas. I’ll reveal the destination closer to then, but as always, you’ll be the first to know.
This week’s essay explores what it means to be the first. And not in a competitive way, but in a growth-is-scary kind of way. Has this happened to you at all? This is what traveling has been for me. One day, I was a curious college student with no passport. The next, I was staying in a hostel by myself thousands of miles from home.
On July 4, 2015, I woke up in an airport Marriott in Atlanta. My heart was fluttering as I anxiously rearranged my suitcase that was overstuffed because I’d be gone for so long. That was the day that changed my life.
It was the day I became the first. Not in the world (obviously), but in my family. How that would trickle into every area in my life was lost on me then—I just craved adventure and was willing to deal with a racing heart to get there.
A few weeks ago, my sister and I sat in a hip East Nashville coffee shop that’s been a fixture in the neighborhood before the days of hot chicken1 and Nashville aired on CMT.
I don’t speak often about my family in this space, but this story needs a preamble:
Breanne (that’s my sister) and I are actually half-sisters. Same dad, different moms. Both biracial. We look like full siblings, but are still different enough to have our own styles, tastes, and looks. Every time we get together, we discuss a future sisters-only trip to Europe. And whenever I think about it, I smile.
One of the defining aspects of our sisterhood, though, is that we weren’t raised together. And yet, there are so many personality traits we share—we’re both INFJs, which is the rarest personality type. I wonder how rare it is to have two in the same family.
Above all, what has made our relationship is effort. We had to essentially build a sisterhood from the ground up as adults. Now, she is 20 and I am 26. We are closer than ever before and growing closer every year.
That day in the coffee shop, I was rubbing her back while she cried big alligator tears. Right now, she’s applying to finish her Bachelor’s degree as a transfer student. All the financial aid applications, transfer credits (or lack thereof), and narrowing down a list of schools without guidance is too much.
We get to have vulnerable moments like these because of the relationship the two of us built for ourselves, and because I have already gone before her to do the very thing she is facing now. She can come to me because I was the first.
Every big sister knows this is a rite of passage, regardless of the milestone—crap hits the fan, and you are there with no judgement, a box of tissues, a back rub, and an encouraging word: You’re not alone. It’s going to be okay.
As I reflect on that moment, I’m reminded that being the first is lonely. You don’t get to share experiences until those a few years behind face the same thing, and then you get to partake as a guide.
When I think about it, I see myself in Costa Rica.
If you’re new around here, you probably don’t know that my first time outside the U.S. was for a monthlong summer internship in Costa Rica. I was 19 years old and had never been on a plane. No, forget the plane—I’d never even been inside an airport. I’m slightly older and wiser now, and I can’t believe nothing went wrong. But it’s true. That July thousands of miles from home was bliss. I couldn’t get enough.
In American culture, we love the firsts. When our children start school, we take their picture and put it in the family album. During our time in school, overachievers are encouraged. Being second-best isn’t good enough. It’s first or nothing.
Alongside this mentality, we romanticize people that move up the social and financial ladder. If your parents didn’t go to college, it’s considered extra amazing if you do.
But it wasn’t until recent years that we finally articulated how lonely it is to be the first in any way. I think many people are the first they know to do something, whatever that may be.
And being a beginner when you don’t know someone intermediate or advanced is more challenging than I ever allowed myself to feel. I’m sure many, if not all, of you can relate to this.
Seven (!) years ago, I said yes to an adventure without knowing it would lead here. Without knowing it would influence my career, without knowing I would start a blog like Sarah L. Travels,2 without knowing how much that little website would mean to me.
When I was in country #1, I didn’t know if there would be a country #2. Everything I thought my life would be was wrong, its trajectory now wholly different from what I originally planned for myself as a perfectionist with a 10-year plan.3
All I knew is that if there were experiences like the sunset over the Pacific in Tamarindo, like moving in with an abuelita right after meeting her, like standing on the public bus for six hours because there weren’t any seats left and laughing with newfound friends the entire way—I would always seek them out. This was living to me.
23 countries and seven years later, I’m in Denmark. More specifically, I’m standing on a bridge over Hønsebroløbet, a stretch of water separating Copenhagen. The sun is setting. I have a quiet moment to myself, even in the teeming crowds. On a deep inhale, I take in the salty air. Eyes closed. Head tipped back. As I let it all out, I open my eyes.
24 I have seen. Only the rest of the world to go.
What’s On My Tray Table
This week, I flew through Ariel Lawhon’s I Was Anastasia. The legend of Anastasia Romanov’s survival from the Russian Revolution inspired an animated feature film and a Broadway musical.4
Lawhon takes this epic story and puts a historical fiction twist on it in this novel. From the elderly Anastasia to the Romanov princess’ youth, the story is told in alternating timelines to fill in the gaps of what happened to this final imperial family.
As unbelievable rumors swirl about Europe that the Romanovs were killed, a young woman with mysterious, ghastly scars unexpectedly appears with a striking resemblance to Anastasia. This young woman knows too much about Romanov customs and insider information to be immediately cast off as a liar.
One question remains throughout the 20th century: Is she Anastasia? Or is she an impostor?
You’ll have to read to the end (and I mean the *very* end) to find out.
I stayed up for hours to finish this book because I had to know how it ended. I give it five stars. Here are links for Amazon and Bookshop.
My current read is Lee Cole’s debut, Groundskeeping. It’s about an aspiring writer who takes a job as a groundskeeper at a liberal arts college in exchange for a free writing class. As Cole describes this small Kentucky town, this affluent microcosm in a rural setting just outside Louisville, I can see it. I can smell the pine needles, feel the sun of a Southern fall. It reminds me of how Margaret Renkl talks about Southern writing in Graceland, At Last.
I hope your weekend is full of good books, even better food, and an adventure that’s all your own.
Be brave and stay that way,
Sarah
Yes, hot chicken is a newer thing that became THE thing and people that are from here are still confused about how all this happened. Not how hot chicken came to be in general, but how it became a symbol of our city. If you know, could you clue me in?
I did have a blog then, but I wrote less than 5 posts on it. It was very basic, but I also had no time to blog in college.
I am now a recovering perfectionist and the 10-year plan went out the (airplane) window years ago. Here’s to growth!
Anastasia was the first (and only) Broadway show I’ve seen and it was gorgeous. I went by myself. I was in NYC for my birthday and the ball drop (did I ever tell you I’m a New Year’s Baby?). I met the nicest people in line to enter the theater, our breath fogging in the frigid air around us because it was New York’s second-coldest NYE on record. Good times.
As a new reader, it was great to read "where it all started" with your love of travel. I Was Anastasia sounds good. I put a hold on it after reading your review. I read Groundskeeping this summer and thought it was a great read. I loved in Kentucky (Lexington) for about a year and could really visualize the setting!