January 28, 2008
As you might imagine, David and I spend lots of time together. And I do mean lots. Traveling together means that not only are we the other's only conversational partners for 99% of the time, we also have only each other to rely on each other when the inevitable difficulties of travel arise. Plus, we've mentioned we camp, right? So imagine spending all of your time with one person in a mesh enclosure 7x4.5 feet, at it's largest points. And then imagine spending all of your time with one person in a small mesh enclosure, while hiking for several days where not only are you together all of the time, but you don't even see other people. But we're extremely compatible, in most ways, so it really doesn't matter. And when it does, we take a break.
About six months ago, in Madagascar, we realized that there is such a thing as too much togetherness, even for us, so we took a half day apart. An it was such a nice change, that we've taken to repeating the day off every 4 to 6 weeks. Sometimes it happens naturally, like in KL, when I sat in a Borders for hours, reading guide books about New Zealand and David ran around exploring countless electronics stores comparing prices for our just-about-to-be-purchased camera. But today, after the 6-day circuit on the GSWW, we decided to formally take a break. And now I just don't know what to do with my day. I might go to (yet another) Borders and shamelessly read brand new books I have no intention of purchasing; I might go to the movies and see Juno; or, I might go to a cafe and order something decadently chocolate and feel vaguely guilty when I'm not able to finish it, wishing David were with me so we could have split it. There are just so many possibilities.
