Tattooed Travel

Eleven years ago I was plopped down in arid southeastern Turkey as a seventeen year old exchange student. I came into the experience bright-eyed and bushy tailed, ready for a year of adventure, language learning, and introspection.

Instead, I shit myself for three months, realized I had deeply untreated depression, and was in entirely over my head. I left the program nine months early with my tail between my legs and a newfound appreciation for the difficulties of world travel.

Despite the ass-kicking my foray into student exchange gave me, it also allowed an inside look into the life of an ordinary Turkish family. Although I’ve been away for over a decade, I still consider my host family as near and dear to me as my blood relations. I was taken in with open arms, fed to the point of combustion, and loved like one of their own. Turkey itself was a beautiful and complex country full of unending hospitality and history.

So here we are, eleven years later, having just been through another ass kicking in its own right. My husband and I have spent the entirety of our relationship caring for special needs animals in some capacity. We met shortly after the death of my childhood cat, Prince, whom I loved dearly for sixteen years. Colton (said husband) immediately bonded with my toothless longhaired Dachshund, Mira, and I adopted another kitty, Gretchen, about a month after we started dating. Gretchen’s time with us was short, but burned brightly. A mere 8 months after we adopted her, she was gone.

Next, came Thuthan. While supposedly healthy, she acquired chronic conditions like Mira acquired pelt snowballs on a winter’s day. IBD, CKD, chronic UTI’s, kidney infections, peeing blood, arthritis. For four and a half years we catered to her around the clock; meals every two hours, a medication list so long we needed a chalkboard chart, monthly specialist visits, you name it. Unfortunately at the beginning of this year, we lost her. Within 36 hours, our perfect little sausage roll, Mira, joined her at the rainbow bridge.

In days, we went from everything, to nothing. The only thing that personally kept me going was a rapidly growing google doc with an ambitiously planned world trip. For over a year I drip fed it countries and supplies. I used it as my own personal power bank, never hoping to use it, never wanting it to happen. Because if it happens, it meant profound loss.

For the first time in our relationship, we are alone. Colton is a thirty year old software engineer and I am a twenty eight year old special needs cat sitter. I have a biology degree, but at this point it’s basically a $50,000 piece of cardstock. We have no children, we own a home, and got married in October of 2023. The rational next step would to be invest our finances and maybe consider going back to school.

Instead, I’m working on finishing an entire back tattoo and planning our six to twelve month trip around the world. Maybe more, maybe less.

Regardless, this is how it begins. One step at a time, one loss at a time, one therapy session at a time. Hopefully soon we will heal on the road, and the rest of our journey will open up ahead.