{"id":575,"date":"2013-10-30T05:50:57","date_gmt":"2013-10-30T05:50:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thirtythree.org\/projects\/discovertheunknown\/?p=575"},"modified":"2013-10-30T05:58:40","modified_gmt":"2013-10-30T05:58:40","slug":"keeping-my-s-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thirtythree.org\/projects\/discovertheunknown\/keeping-my-s-together\/","title":{"rendered":"Keeping My S*** Together"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last nights catastrophe in public transport left me frazzled and pondering a flight straight home to the USA. Although things could\u2019ve actually been A LOT worse, I found myself having to deal with more travel logistics that I am currently not a fan of. Through this, I have come to realize what travel burnout feels like. I am experiencing it at the moment.<\/p>\n

7 Signs of Travel Burnout:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Lack of excitement in planning fun activities<\/li>\n
  2. Exhaustion<\/li>\n
  3. Grumpiness<\/li>\n
  4. Becoming very introverted while staying at a hostel as to avoid the basic small talk about where I\u2019m from and about my travels.<\/li>\n
  5. Becoming emotional when thinking about how bad I want to be back home with friends and family<\/li>\n
  6. Consistently eating out because I don\u2019t have the energy to cook<\/li>\n
  7. Not wanting to go explore the cities because it entails lots and lots of walking and I\u2019m exhausted.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Although, I am experiencing these, I am not a complete monster, just keeping to myself at the moment.<\/p>\n

    So let\u2019s talk about my night last night and HOW bad it could\u2019ve been and the degree of badness that it was. :-p<\/p>\n

    Let me start by saying that Sarah Chapman is an angel and I am so grateful that she was able to drive me to the airport and keep me calm along the way. I was initially planning to take the tram and a bus to the airport to catch my flight and I had even already paid for my bus ticket there. However, Sarah was able to borrow a car from a family that she nanny\u2019s for and offered to take me. At first I declined her offer because I thought well, I\u2019ve already bought the bus ticket, I mind as well use it, but after pondering it a bit, I took her up on the offer. THANK GOODNESS I DID! You know Why?! Well If I would\u2019ve gone on that bus to the airport, I would\u2019ve been at the WRONG airport!!!! I had no idea that Melbourne had two separate airports!!! So yeah, we found this out because we drove up to the Tullamarine airport, got out to check in and they informed me that my flight was departing from Avalon which was ANOTHER 40 minutes away and I only had 1 hour until the gate closed on the flight. The customer service representatives were the LEAST bit helpful and I was left to have to ask for directions to Avalon from the baggage assistants outside the entrance. Sarah and I started booking it down M80 Freeway and got there in time. We then found out that my flight had been delayed 1 hour! I know you\u2019re thinking, Oh that\u2019s great news! Well, yes and no. Yes, that I was able to make my flight, but no because that meant that the bus transport that I had booked upon my arrival in Brisbane was now unable to be used because of the delay. Therefore, I had to spend $8 on a call to the bus company letting them know. Luckily, I can use the credit I have with them on another bus service at some point in my travels. Bad news, I had to spend $55 on a taxi to get to my hostel in Brisbane and after arriving at the hostel, the receptionist informed me there were others means of transport for cheaper, that I guess I never was informed of throughout my research! Not cool.<\/p>\n

    The hardest thing about this whole process was doing it alone. I know that if I had a partner in crime, I may have been a bit more relaxed because you know that there is someone there with you to relate to about the crazy experience. Since I don\u2019t have that at the moment, I am learning a lot about how to maintain my emotions in these types of situations that are out of my control. I call this \u201cKeeping Your S*** Together.\u201d If I didn\u2019t and I allowed myself to break down, I would\u2019ve been totally screwed. My anxiety would\u2019ve taken over, tears would\u2019ve begun to flow and that would\u2019ve been the end. One way that I Keep My S*** Together is through prayer and acceptance. I ask God to give me peace, understanding, and the strength to get through whatever I\u2019m experiencing. Also, I am getting much better, as I\u2019ve stated in the last post, of my acceptance of things and allowing myself to be okay with things being uncontrollable and riding the waves. I had no control over the flight being delayed and missing my transfer and I did what I could to find a cheap alternative transport. I just had to be okay with what needed to be done and move on with things.<\/p>\n

    I am looking forward to a relaxing week at the Arts Factory Lodge near Byron Bay. I know that once I get settled in, get some good rest, and meet some people, I will come back into the adventurous, vivacious person that I am. Life is crazy and unpredictable. You will never know what the next step entails, but the best way to approach life\u2019s hiccups is to stay as mentally, physically and spiritually strong as you can so that whatever life throws at you, you will have the strength and ability to Keep Your S*** Together.<\/i><\/p>\n

    All the best,<\/p>\n

    Erica<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Last nights catastrophe in public transport left me frazzled and pondering a flight straight home to the USA. Although things could\u2019ve actually been A LOT worse, I found myself having to deal with more travel logistics that I am currently not a fan of. Through this, I have come to realize what travel burnout feels […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":577,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thirtythree.org\/projects\/discovertheunknown\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thirtythree.org\/projects\/discovertheunknown\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thirtythree.org\/projects\/discovertheunknown\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thirtythree.org\/projects\/discovertheunknown\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thirtythree.org\/projects\/discovertheunknown\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=575"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/thirtythree.org\/projects\/discovertheunknown\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":576,"href":"http:\/\/thirtythree.org\/projects\/discovertheunknown\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575\/revisions\/576"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thirtythree.org\/projects\/discovertheunknown\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thirtythree.org\/projects\/discovertheunknown\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thirtythree.org\/projects\/discovertheunknown\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thirtythree.org\/projects\/discovertheunknown\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}