sometimes i think too much (oahu 2023-10-19)

[cheez]

When I woke up, it was dark. I wasn't excited, but I wasn't nervous either. Part of it was fatigue, I'm sure. It was sometime past 5 am, but before 5:15 am. Even though I don't remember the exact time, I remember that I'd beaten my alarm again.
 

Part of it was knowing myself too well. There's been very few times where I've enjoyed traveling—there's always just that vague lack of something you'd hoped for, a something you don't know how to put to words. The feeling of your heart beating faster, of a slow glow heat that spreads through your veins, of remembering the brilliance of the world. Maybe no one ever feels these things, maybe they are a false promise told by my friends who seem to love travel so much, or by the oversaturated vacation ads I can't seem to escape. I know it's my fault for expecting fantasies. Still. I don't need that much. I just want a gentle reminder that I'm alive. 

Don't think too much. Try to enjoy yourself.

Dammit.

I told myself not to say such clichéd lines. Too late to take it back though, even if it made me feel like a robot, telling myself to try to feel or try not to feel. As if someone had asked, 'how much emotion would you like today?' 10%? Preparing inputs... beep boop. Beep boop. Annnnd... there's the malfunction.

Annnd... there was me overthinking telling myself not to overthink.

Then another thought bubbled up. You don't have to enjoy yourself. Just feel how you feel. Even if it's bad, that's okay. Just feel. 

Which was clichéd too, but somehow, I felt better. Maybe I wouldn't have felt this way at all if it wasn't so early.

As I finished packing my bags, I reminded myself also that aside from travels with family, I hadn't had many bad traveling experiences either. Most felt neutral. Some highs, some lows, overall flat. I didn't see what everyone else liked so much about it, but at the same time I didn't have too much of a problem with it.  And when I did, it was often my fault, for not learning a bit of the language beforehand, for doing typical tourist checklist activities when I don't like crowded places, shopping, sightseeing (unless some activity is involved), and feel neutral on museums, theme parks, famous monuments. To be honest, I'm probably not much a traveler. My favorite travels have been going to visit friends, and what I liked most was that my friend was there. I did love the food (really the main reason I travel at all) and beautiful nature, but this was offset by the anxiety of finding my way in an unknown place and being introverted to the point of self-sabotage—I've gotten better at hiding this over the years, but I'm the type of person who will sometimes choose to go to one grocery store over another simply because it has a self-checkout line and I don't think I can face talking to people that day (even the nicest, friendliest cashier. actually sometimes that's worse because they ask you how your day is and you for some reason find it hard to respond. and then feel kind of stressed trying to respond like a normal, nice person with a coherent grasp of the english language. then feel bad for feeling stressed because it's easy?? all you have to say is 'it's been good, how was your day?' why is that so hard? and they were trying to be nice!!).

5:45 rolled around, and my roommate emerged from his room. We shared the bleary-eyed telepathy of pre-dawn risers. You dead inside too? Yeah. You ready to go? Yeah.

His brother was kind enough to drive us to the airport, so we drove to his place, then hitched a ride from there. The stretches of highway flew by peacefully. There's something I've always liked about the highway at dawn. This time too, as I looked out the window at the blurring of lights in the distance, watching the shadows slowly find their shape in the blue of dawn, I felt like I was in a dream. Familiar scenery is a stranger under a different light.

Soon we reemerged back into civilization, aka the airport. Through the usual routine: security, then the gate. Hawaiian airlines today. Our seats hadn't yet been assigned, so we lined up in front of the gate agents to ask about them, only to find out there was a whole slew of us unassigned fliers. They would assign us soon, they said, just wait for us to call out your name. I was the second to last person to be assigned, but it turned out to be a blessing—my roomie asked if they could seat us together and though they grumbled that we should've asked earlier, they were kind enough to try, and the only remaining seats where we could sit together was the very last row of three in the back of the plane. So we ended up getting three seats to the two of us.

This was when I learned why my dramamine wasn't knocking me out the way I hoped for—my past self had somehow made the mistake of getting the less drowsy version. How foolish, tsk tsk. But it still did its main job, which was what really mattered.

It's interesting that they serve food on flights to Hawaii, even though it's less time than a flight to New York. They gave us a breakfast sandwich with croissant bread, a sausage patty, egg, and cheese. It was okay. Not bad considering it's airplane food and i don't like sausage patties. I learned what POG is from my roomie, and tried a bit of his. Too sweet for me, but a fun try. They also offered complimentary tropical alcoholic punch, which I would've tried if I wasn't a lightweight and deathly afraid of getting motion sick on a plane—dramamine is my hero, but I don't trust it enough to think it'd beat out alcohol-induced nausea. My roomie said the punch was good.

Then I closed my eyes and waited for the rest of the flight to pass.

This would be my 'first' time in Hawaii. In truth, that's a lie. I'd been once before, as part of a Chinese tour bus my parents booked for my grandparents' last visit ever to the US, over a decade ago, back when I was in middle school. My opinion of Chinese tour buses is, they're terrible, never go, it's better to stay at home and save your $$. But I understand a little better now why my parents, whose first language isn't English, who had never been to Hawaii themselves (or any of the other places we've gone on similar terrible tours to), who felt the burden of giving their elderly parents/in-laws the best last American experience they could, would choose this. Still, I don't think anyone had a good time. Though I can't say I remember one way or the other. I remember little except the endless hours on the bus; the aching of my neck from trying to find a comfortable sleeping position (and failing, if that wasn't obvious); my parents whisper-arguing over details like you-didn't-pack-enough, you-packed-too-much, and as usual being more stressed on vacation than off; the blatant upselling by the tour bus guide; the delicious dole whip. The sad part is I don't remember my grandparents being there at all. Except, in such vague fuzziness that it might not be real, the image of my grandmother sitting on a chair. Her back hunched over, one of her legs jiggling up and down. I don't know if it's the hyperbole of memory that makes her seem so sad and small. Or if truly, she was.

I wondered if this time, I would be able to overwrite these old memories. Then, if it was selfish to want to. Then, if it even mattered when they were hardly memories at all.