The Unplanned Lessons of a Life Well-Traveled

When you first encounter the term "BFF" scrawled in brightly colored early 90s glitter pen in your middle school yearbook, there's this blissful ignorance about what "Best Friend Forever" really means. You imagine a constant companion—loyal, present, the cheese to your grilled cheese sandwich. What you don't picture are the future messy BFFs who shatter those cliches: the goth chick from community college, rocking corsets and knee-high leather boots like it’s still 1995 (my fake wife); the strait-laced military officer who rented you a room in your twenties (the former roommate); or the friend who helped you escape a Palm Springs debaucherous boutique hotel disaster (the writer). Yet, these are my people, the ones who’ve stuck around through the chaos.

Turns out, BFFs are less about forever and more about who sticks around when the glitter fades. They're like the Muses from Greek mythology, bestowing knowledge with a side of comedy, tragedy, and the occasional dance-off (which helped with the pandemic blues).

Fast forward to London, with Fake Wife recovering at home and me, feeling a mix of post-travel blues and a stomach that had been through hell, gearing up for my final day abroad. Cue Sport Day in Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens—a Monday Bank Holiday event that was exactly what the doctor ordered. Former Roommate, his partner, and I hopped on the Underground to watch various LGBTQ community sports teams putting on performances that were judged with the kind of abruptness you only find in reality TV. The sun was shining, the conga line was grooving to ABBA’s greatest hits and Nellie Furtado's "Maneater" and there I was, letting the joy of it all push away the creeping sadness of leaving my friends and heading back to small-town life.

Pride Rock in South Africa and LGBTQ pride in London. A little Lion King and a little pride was good for the soul.

I was a little stunned when life threw in some cosmic humor. As one team reenacted The Lion King by hoisting a stuffed Simba into the air, I couldn’t help but laugh at the full-circle moment—two weeks earlier, I’d been in South Africa, standing before the real Pride Rock. The Universe clearly has a sense of humor.

The day wrapped up early, and as I packed my bags that night. I couldn't sleep and morning came too soon. I said goodbye —to the view from the window to the memories of my stomach’s atrocities, and to the chapter of my life I was about to close. I snapped one last photo of the historic neighborhood where Former Roommate lived, hailed an Uber, and pondered whether this would be my last London escape. My friends might be moving stateside soon, and who knows what that means for my future British getaways.

On my long ride to the airport, my mind raced between disparate topics - the excitement of flying in a brand-new United Airlines Boeing 787 and my ex.

I checked in at London Heathrow, went through immigration, walked through all of the incredible shopping at that airport, and headed to the United lounge to have breakfast. Sipping on a mimosa in the United lounge, I had one of those rare moments of clarity. My ex was still lurking in the back of my thoughts. Why was I clinging to a civil relationship with someone who couldn’t be bothered to text back more than once every few weeks? His new Tesla making its way into conversation via my mom, and our former home’s sale popping up in the same passive-aggressive way—through a mutual friend’s Facebook post. Later, I’d learn about the deaths of our cats in a similarly indirect manner—because where else but Target would my mom bump into his mom?

Mimosa time in Heathrow's United Polaris Lounge.

It was time to put that chapter to bed, for good. The world is filled with wonderful people and amazing places. Why surround myself with anything else? So, I sent the text, calling out his lack of effort, and then boarded my flight, wondering if I’d done the right thing.

As I settled into my seat on the shiny new Boeing 787—Polaris business class (because I'm fancy like that)—I tried to distract myself with the Saks Fifth Avenue bedding and a long flight without cell service. But my mind had other plans.

Thanks to the purser's impromptu tour guide act, I looked out the window as he made announcements pointing out landmarks like Buckingham Palace. I still couldn’t sleep even though I was exhausted from the night before. So much for the fancy bedding. Maybe being forced to sit with my emotions, sans WiFi, was just what I needed to process the two intense weeks of traveling and the last year of unnecessary drama. I drowned my feelings in chocolate mousse cake from the Polaris snack bar—a small comfort in the midst of existential dread.

Ten hours later, the Purser was playing tour guide again and pointed out the Golden Gate Bridge and Apple's round headquarters. By the time we landed in San Francisco, I’d missed my connecting flight to San Luis Obispo but managed to snag a seat to Santa Barbara instead thanks to United Airline's nifty new app functions. And there it was—the final nail in the coffin of my decade-long relationship. My ex had responded: "I don't feel the need to try to atone for every time you think I haven't talked to you."

Ouch. We were done. I am not a maybe. It was well past the time to accept the gift of goodbye.

Airport lounges are the best places to people watch and wonder about what's next in life.

With my luggage lost somewhere in transit and my parents driving an hour and a half out of their way to pick me up, I realized that my hollowed-out ostrich eggs from South Africa were safe (at least, I hoped) in my carry-on. I was back to reality, where, at 3 AM when I still couldn't sleep, Tinder reminded me that I was in a small town with slim pickings on the dating front. I realized that I needed to come to terms with being happy alone.

The Writer shot me a text during daylight hours. “Hay. Are you back?”

“I am and very jet lagged. How are you?”

“DOUG! Your pictures are amazing. And it sounds like you had a life-changing trip, truly. Are you feeling better than you did before you left?“

I thought about it for a minute. I survived a lot on my own. Am I actually more at ease in my own skin than I thought I was? Was I looking for something that I already had?

“It was a pretty epic trip, though Cairo did not agree with my stomach. And yeah, I think the big takeaway is that I’m a lot more comfortable by myself than I thought I was.”

“The best takeaway ever. Congrats! Yeah, stomach troubles suck. I love me some antibiotics on the road.”

“Fortunately, I had three, and my Egyptian tour guide gave me a whole box of them in case that wasn't sufficient.” Costco’s travel vaccination program for the win.

Tragedy, comedy, and dance, indeed. It's the journey—the people, the challenges, the moments of wonder—that define us. And if a friendship can survive vacation misadventures, illness, and even camels, it can survive anything.

Relationships, on the other hand, may fizzle out for completely mysterious reasons. The ex and I, who had whethered every thing from the rise of touch screens, the Great Recession, and the rise of Donald Trump, would devolve into total strangers.

Parts of life are fleeting. So, here's to the journey - new chapters, new adventures, and a life lived fully. May we learn from it.