Time apart… Is time well spent!

Getting lost is very much a frustration and a thrill for us as we explore new cities, towns and villages. Sometimes we’re physically lost and other times we’re emotionally or spiritually lost. Sometimes one person is super stressed out and wants answers and the other is oblivious to knowing anything is even wrong. It’s a game of seeking answers. Sometimes we give up seeking and just wander around; we let ourselves to just be.

As we tread this earth we take note of our similarities but we also notice our differences between people from country to country. Differences like walking the streets of Istanbul at 2 o’clock in the morning versus Amsterdam. In one city you see people singing, drinking tea and smoking hookahs and the other you are overwhelmed by the scent of weed, hip alternative styles, and acceptance of unique people. Both similar in the happy, healthy and buzzing communities, but yet very different.

And just like everything else, we as a couple have our similarities and differences too. After one of our moments of frustration in Istanbul with one another, we decided that we would take a day apart to go explore by ourselves and meet up at the end of the day. So we went off to spend our selective days apart. Paulina met a couple travelers from the hostel and with her friendly heart she set out to check out Old Town and see the sites with her new entourage. While Will found a pick-up soccer game in the park.

But Will was lost … He ended up walking along the seaside heading to the
park where the game was supposed to be. But no one showed. What now? Well, not being much of a planner he walked aimlessly looking at buildings and following trails. This was Will’s first day officially travelling alone because the previous five months he had been side-by-side, day and night with Paulina, except during our 10-day silent retreat.

So there was no soccer for Will, and there was no Paulina for him either, sooooo he turned to the next best thing, his love for animals. Turns out Turkey has this program to take care of stray dogs and cats. They vaccinate these little guys with meds and then they tag them to keep track of their existence. The parks have these dispensary units where people put garbage in the trash bin and dried kibble bits dispense into a dish for the dogs and cat. AMAZING!

Will thought why not make an animal buddy while exploring. The city was old cobble stone roads, steep hills and people lounging in the streets. People watching in Istanbul was a way to explore without moving. The world is always moving. Take a chance to stay still to watch, listen and feel what’s happening around you. Well Will, with his furry dog friend, decided to stay still in a park to watch the world for a moment together. Feeling lost at times in his life and contemplating what the hell he is really doing with his time on this gap year, it was nice to admire his animal friends, creatures in a moment of time enjoying each other’s company.

Meanwhile on Paulina’s side she was taking in the vibrations of her new found tribe members and enjoying her independence. Pictures were taken, good food was eaten. Your soul gets filled different ways for different people, so for this day of us being apart, we were each getting the medicine we needed to reunite happily again.

You start to learn a lot about a person being with them everyday. You know what their habits are, when they’re getting grumpy, how to excite the other person and when to go for a recharge to take space. These are important factors for finding a partner you can share your life with. So in doing this trip we’ve matured our bond with one another.

Everything takes work, it’s just how much work do you want to put in to get the kind of result you want out of it. Listen to your soul and find the nearest gas station to refuel every now and again. Even if this means that you have to take time away from your partner. No feelings should be hurt. A relationship is two individual people joining to share a life together, never lose who you are because it doesn’t benefit the relationship.

Check out this great TED talk we’ve watched multiple times by Esther Perel about how to maintain desire in a long term relationship.

“So I want to draw that little image for you, because this need to reconcile these two sets of needs, we are born with that. Our need for connection, our need for separateness, or our need for security and adventure, or our need for togetherness and for autonomy, and if you think about the little kid who sits on your lap and who is cozily nested here and very secure and comfortable, and at some point all of us need to go out into the world to discover and to explore. That’s the beginning of desire, that exploratory need, curiosity, discovery. And then at some point they turn around and they look at you. And if you tell them,“Hey kiddo, the world’s a great place. Go for it. There’s so much fun out there,” then they can turn away and they can experience connection and separateness at the same time. They can go off in their imagination, off in their body, off in their playfulness, all the while knowing that there’s somebody when they come back.”

In closing, you’ll be happy to know we’re still together and we’ve taken a couple other healthy days apart to let ourselves “feed our soul” independently.  We’ve realized its important to spend some time apart because when you’re doing everything together you can easily lose yourself in what the other person wants to do.  You don’t need to compromise always, being a little selfish every once in a while is a good thing.

Stay tuned to hear about Our 3 Around-the-World Quarrels.