The Seven (Plus Six) Week Itch: Seeing Your New Home in All Its Pudgy Glory

Three months and suddenly Vietnam and I have hit a wall in our relationship.  The initial crush has cooled down and we are facing the stark reality of each other.  The honking of traffic has become too loud.  The rain has become too frequent.  The scooters, too many.  And Vietnam seems equally annoyed with me.  Why else is he sending these obstacles to trip me up?  He won’t let me go to the beach (What? I’m I too fat for you now?).  He sends mosquitoes to keep me in line at night.

We’re on shaky ground.

If Travel is a long-distance partner, then moving in with he or she is bound to cause some issues.  I’ve admitted my love and moved half way across the globe to be with him in the form of Da Nang, Vietnam.  At first he was lovely – sunshine more than I could handle; clear blue ocean and new-friends-a-plenty!  But clearly the crush rush has cooled to a less optimistic…something.   Vietnam tries to take me out to dinner and I want to do is call my best girl friends half way across the world.  Vietnam sends me fields of lovely flowers, and I all I want is a dandelion from JD.  Call me a whiner, but this relationship is not what it once was.

Then again, neither was my last one.  Cape Town held all the glitter of a lovely diamond for the first 10 weeks, then suddenly fell to cubic zirconia despair.  One day we were fine, and the next I was missing my family too hard to notice the gorgeous sunset Cape Town had organized for me.  Es la vida.  It’s true.  Travel can only sustain its glitter for so long.  Soon you are left with something that recites poetry less often, forgets your anniversary and no longer calls you “darling.”

So what do you do when Travel loses its charm?

You evaluate.  How much is he worth to you?  Why did you enter this relationship in the first place?  And on a scale of one to stubborn, how stubborn are you?   In my case – very, not that I’ll ever tell anyone (except on a public blog – oops).

And so whether it’s because you refuse to admit defeat or because you see a future beyond the original dazzle, you suddenly find that you and Travel are in it to win it, come hell or high water (which did happen thanks to our most recent typhoon…anyway).  So alright, Vietnam, we might not be in candle light romance anymore, but lace up and get ready for a long ride.

I’m here to stay.