“That was easy!”
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about easy. A few years ago I realized that I’d been living with a core belief that in order for a thing to be worthwhile, it had to be hard. Easy was ok for other people, but not me. If I wasn’t grinding it out, pushing through something to the other side, or miserying my way through, it didn’t feel like I was accomplishing enough.
But a few years ago, I dove deep into difficult to deal with a series of life events and it was exhausting. It caused me to really think about letting the hard things be hard, and give myself permission to let easy things be easy. And wow, has that been a gift.
You’re probably thinking, “Cool. Good therapy chat…But what does this story have to do with a trip to Colombia?” Well, everything!
As I was packing my bags, a friend asked what I was most excited about for my upcoming trip. “That it was easy” was my honest and impulsive reply. Because planning this trip totally was.
I wanted to take a trip. I picked a week. I looked at direct, reasonably priced flights and booked tickets to Cartagena, (a place I’d wanted to go since watching Kathleen turner and Michael Douglas smoulder their way through). Then I booked an Airbnb with a great view and equally rave reviews. I asked chatGPT to make me a list of things to see and do, places to eat and drink…. And, done. In less than an hour, we were going on vacation.
Maybe this isn’t novel for you; Maybe this is how you travel all the time. Consider me impressed!
Typically, our vacation planning falls significantly left of easy, ranking somewhere around ‘Consuming’. That’s not to say it’s a bad thing – our travels are full of well researched adventures, time that’s maximized, tours that leave no stone unturned, and accommodations confidently and carefully selected. It means that things generally run smoothly, and when they don’t, we address them with confidence, because we know what we expected and what the other options were. How does this work on an easy trip? Let’s find out!
We arrived and we followed the instructions to get a taxi to our Airbnb. #easy.
Our host met us and showed us around. She left, and we headed out for a wander. Given the minimal research I’d done in booking our location, I was thrilled to find that it was exactly as I’d hoped. Central, near cool stuff, and in the perfect part of town for us. #easy
Our first meal was easily our best. Even with a rolling power outage limiting the menu, Cocina de Pepina was a happy find, and Jay claims the Ceviche is the best he’s ever eaten (and confidently, that he ever will). Only time will tell, but it was pretty amazing. #easy
On the way back to our apartment we strolled through the park that connected our area with the Old Town, and stumbled onto a veritable zoo of sloths, tiny monkeys, iguanas and large birds. And just like that, our trip had an unexpected wildlife bingo card. #easy
Would our trip continue like this? We sure hoped so. Perhaps it wasn’t perfect, but we can save that for future adventures. On this one, easy rules.
