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A Traveler’s Education

Posted on by Goingmadss

I turn 27 today.. 27 years on this green earth and I feel like I’ve learned more about myself in the 3 weeks leading up to now than in all those years combined.

I went to Ireland again a couple of weeks ago and it was just as wonderful as I remembered. The country reminded me of my roots, as it does, but it also brought to light the changes that have occurred within me since starting this life of travel.

Mark Twain once said “Travel is fatal to prejudice”. I’ve always liked this quote, as I feel connected to it as a traveler that considers herself extremely open and tolerant of other people and cultures. The more I travel, the more this thought settles within me, yet at the same time, I have become less and less tolerant of my own culture. I recognized an air of near embarrassment when confronted with foreign perceptions of American ideals, American food, American politics (Don’t worry, we’re going to stay plenty far away from that one in this post), and other concepts.

What happens when you no longer feel pride in where you come from? We’ve brought this perception upon ourselves by thinking that every other country will cater to us and our needs when we travel. When I go abroad, or even just to another region of the US, I want to immerse myself in their culture! I want to try their food, drink their beer, listen to their music, experience all their differing talents. We all do, right? Everyone says that, but then why do we go through the trouble of flying a million miles abroad to bitch about the lack of ranch dressing and Dr. Pepper 🙄 and compare everything to how it is at home? So yes Mark, I agree with you that travel is fatal to prejudice, but for me, it’s also fuel for my burning inward prejudices.

After Ireland, I came home to good ol’ OKC for a visit, and what a time to be back in town. For those of you that live under a rock, Oklahoma has had a massive teacher walkout occur over the past nine school days. And may I just say FOR THE RECORD: It’s about DAMN time y’all. Once more a little louder for the people in the back: FIGHT👏🏻FOR👏🏻WHAT👏🏻YOU👏🏻DE👏🏻SERVE👏🏻 Whether you would like to acknowledge it or not, teachers make the motherloving world go ’round. To make them deal with hyperactive small people or moody medium-sized people on a daily basis, make them responsible for the education of our future leaders, AND take away all of their funding? Get out of here.. what did you expect to happen?

It was interesting for me, because coming home, I was prepared to hear a massive rally cry across the state and see everyone gushing their support in any way they could. You’ll understand my surprise when I got into my brother’s car at the airport and his first comments were about how annoyed he was with the walkout! You see, he’s a senior this year and knowing he’ll have to make up those days at the end of the year has effectively ruined his life. It’s funny to see that high school bubble in action when you’re an old geezer like myself. I can see now just how naïve I was to anything bigger than my own drama back then. I hope one day he’ll be able to look back and see how important this walkout was.

My Mr. Feeny in high school was a glorious woman named Rose Ann Neal. She made me love school. She challenged me, motivated me, respected me, and made me feel like I had nothing standing in the way of my crazy successful future. She gave meaning to literature, and frankly, to high school as a whole. I can say with absolute certainty that she’s a major part of the reason I went on to finish a Bachelor’s and a Master’s. BTW Mrs. Neal, if you’re reading this, I’m heading back to school for the third time next year, so thanks for that 🤓. Can you imagine if I had gone through school in classes of 35 kids? This whole post would be full of incorrect uses of there, there, their, then, and than! I mean, have you read anything on Twitter lately? THE INJUSTICE!

What I’m trying to say is, travel, teachers, and the Oxford comma are important.

😘 Mads.

Is It Hopeless?

Posted on by Goingmadss

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obselete” -R. Buckminster Fuller

I’d like to start by saying that I have this group of friends from my undergrad that are so many things, things that range from absolutely amazing to downright stubborn. These friends vary in their degrees of fortitude and apathy, ambition and ease of presence, and I adore each of them for being who they are, despite the times that I grow very frustrated when decisions they make, driven by who they are, upset me. Since moving to NYC, I’ve become closer with some of those friends, for many of them live here, and I’ve grown apart from some due to distance and life, as it goes.

I’m telling you about these beautiful humans for a couple of reasons, and not the for the obvious one that they’re majority redheads (it’s a thing, in my life). The intense pride I feel when I speak about them and their accomplishments is overwhelming. These are some of my oldest friends, and we have stuck together and been there for each other over many years and many miles. Some have lived abroad, some still are*, and even though we’re all spread across the country right now, our connections are stronger than ever. My point in telling you all of this is to explore with you what friends like these should do if they feel one of their own start to slip away. Like, really slip away.

I have a tendency to frantically try and form traditions or push everyone to meet up in a certain place, hoping it will remind us what got us here in the first place, why we all became friends. It worked a few times, but as time has progressed, it’s been harder and harder for everyone to find the time. How do you tell your friends that you’re scared we’re all going to fall apart? That these friendships have been the capstone of the most important years of your life and to think of a future without them is physically painful? How do you tell them that you fundamentally disagree with a decision that has a huge impact on their life without risking the chance that they’ll run from you and that’ll be the end? You want to protect them and tell them how you see it from your point of view, but you know it’s not something they want to hear. Do you lie? Is it more important to protect them from themselves, or to protect the friendship that you don’t want compromised? I’ve been struggling with these questions a lot lately.

They say that it gets easier as you get older, but I don’t agree with that. The problems don’t become easier, they become different, and generally, they come with more to lose. As a Millennial, I see sometimes this mindset with people my age, that if you have a simple disagreement, screw it. You’ve got 1300 FB friends and 800 followers on Insta and Cardi B follows you on Twitter so pshhh girl you’re fine, people love you, you’re doing alright. I hate that. I understand it to an extent, but I hate it. Likes and follows aren’t gestures of love, they’re gestures of boredom or envy. I sometimes think I’m the only one that feels this way. The only one that takes these relationships so seriously.

So the question is.. do I keep fighting? Or is it hopeless?

*Shoutout to Mitch, still kicking ass abroad to this day!

Anne and Lindsey

Posted on by Goingmadss

“Sometimes the most scenic roads in life are the detours you didn’t mean to take.” -Angela N. Blount

Apologies for the delay, apparently the Southwest region of our country respects itself too much to have cell service.

I want to cover a lot of ground in this post.. I feel it’s poetic considering how much literal ground we covered over the last seven days. This trip taught me quite a few things about myself and my Millennial generation as a whole. You hear *generally older* people speak about our habit of devaluing history or other cultures unless it has a social media payoff for us.

For example, let’s call our hypothetical millennial idiot Anne. Anne decides she wants to see a landmark she saw on Pinterest in real life so she can have a really awesome picture to post on Instagram. Anne spends a ton of money and time getting to.. the Colosseum. Her main purpose to snap a pic in a cute hat without getting pickpocketed and on to the next..

Lindsey, a stranger to Anne, takes this cute hat pic as a friendly favor, while contemplating the history of the ground they stand on. How many people have died on this dirt? How many people have broken their backs to build one of the oldest and most recognizable landmarks on this earth.. fought for their lives and lost.. only to have their legacy remembered by a girl in a hat captioning the photo of this hallowed ground with only emojis.

I will admit that I have been both Anne and Lindsey. I’ve been Anne and Lindsey as recently as this trip.

Here’s an example of my Anne behavior:

Awesome pic right? I’m literally standing on the edge of one of the 7 Natural Wonders of the World and I’m losing my shit over this bird and our symmetry and how great it’s gonna play online.. and that filter? It doesn’t get any better than that.

I suck. However, I’ve had many more moments as Lindsey over the past week. Like the day I met these wonderful people:

We weren’t able to speak to each other, unable to learn each other’s names, but in one of those really rare moments of unspoken clarity, we understood each other. I did learn how to say “See you later” (It’s Jaane). And in another Lindsey moment, I met Nick Klonis:

Nick runs a bar in Santa Fe, NM called Evangelo’s. After talking with Nick and his niece tending bar, we learned about Nick’s father, Angelo Klonis. Angelo was a teenager when he moved solo to The States from Greece. After Pearl Harbor, he was so offended by what happened to his new home that he joined The Army. His picture is one of the most iconic images from WWII, having been featured on the cover of TIME and many other publications, including a stamp at one point. Here’s a link to check out the full story:

https://m.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/delving-deep-story-angelo-klonis-wwii-icon.html

This my friends, is what it’s all about. Real people and real stories and okay the occasional awesome picture that makes you feel good when your likes turn from names to numbers. There is so much more I can tell you and show you from this week, but I’m gonna leave this one here for a bit.

Peace ✌🏻