An appraisal
Ivan (who is not a stand-in for me) has travel anxiety. But it’s a strange kind. It’s got nothing to do with fear of flying; he can tolerate all modes of transport. It’s not an apprehension of things going wrong; he can handle delays, cancellations, and other travel mishaps. It’s not a fear of the unknown; he likes to meet new people and be in unfamiliar places. The travel anxiety that Ivan has is neither about the journey nor the destination. Instead, it’s about the point of departure, and that point of departure is Ivan’s life (which is not a stand-in for my own life).
Ivan has learned that taking a trip, no matter how short and pleasant and inconsequential it’s supposed to be, induces within his mind an involuntary appraisal of his life at the time of the trip. This appraisal takes many forms, some of which are quite literal, like an inventory check. For example, when he packs, he notices how many clothes he owns, and remembers how long he’s had some of the items, where he bought them, what his life had been like when he did, and how it compares to his life now, in appraisal time. The same goes for electronics, keys, toiletries, and other personal items. (A tube of toothpaste can last a surprisingly long time— Ivan uses the recommended “pea-sized” amount—such that the nearly empty tube he’s just packed for a weekend trip may have been with him since before his last heartbreak, or his last bout of unemployment, or his last major depression, et cetera, et cetera.)
When he grabs his passport, Ivan notices that it’s a different color from his older passport and remembers the tribulations that this change of color evokes. He also remembers the days when he was young and travelled exclusively with his family, and how in those days he never even had to see or handle his own passport, let alone worry about its color. His dad would carry all passports and boarding passes, and he would voluntarily have travel anxiety on Ivan’s behalf so that Ivan could just enjoy himself. Ivan thinks he’ll never experience travel like that again, carefree and full of wonder. (N.B. Ivan’s dad had enough anxiety on behalf of every passenger and crew member on a large commercial aircraft, but he still kept it together, at least on the outside. He’s also too old and unwell to travel anymore—a fact of which Ivan is too aware during the appraisal.)
The process of packing pushes the physical manifestations of Ivan’s life, its artifacts, so to speak, through a funnel. It concentrates them and puts them on display for him to examine; not just the items, of course, but also the abstractions that they connote. This funneling and exhibition of Ivan’s life reaches its zenith when he goes through the final pre-trip rituals of cleaning and tidying up his house —which he does quite meticulously, considering that no one will be there in the coming days. The final appraisals of his now funneled life, which happen just as he leaves his house and locks the door, and again when he leaves the perimeters of his supposed hometown, make Ivan feel uneasy. He thinks of how ‘small’ and meaningless and ephemeral his life has been, and how loosely anchored he is to it.
When asked to explain as best he could what this feeling was like and why it caused him so much stress, Ivan said the following:
“Imagine waking up one day and finding yourself all alone, adrift on a raft in the middle of the sea. Never mind how you got there. The sea is calm and the weather is clear, and you feel somewhat safe. Days and weeks pass by and you’re still adrift. Despite the sea being calm, and you being a decent swimmer, you’re too reluctant to move away from the raft, even for a short, leisurely swim (which you desperately need). This reluctance is odd, out of character, and hard to explain. Maybe you’ve grown attached to the raft, thinking it’s your only source of safety—you’ve lost hope of finding land or being rescued. Or maybe you’re afraid of having an outsider’s view of the raft, of realizing how insubstantial it looks—that no matter how stable it’s been so far, it’s still just a raft. It’s got no mechanism you could steer it by and change its course. So you stay on the raft, long enough to either forget that it’s a raft, or for the raft to magically take root at the bottom of the sea and become, you know, like an island or something.”
Yes, Ivan, I think I know what you mean. Thanks for explaining. And bon voyage.