Unicorns and Rainbows

Excuse me while I state the obvious – I love to travel. If I have to use my passport, I’m game. I’ll travel with friends or on my own. When I come back from a trip, I’m always asked if I had a good time, or if it was as exciting as my Facebook posts made it seem. Overall, the answer is a resounding YES! I have yet (knock on wood) to have a disastrous trip. Sometimes things go screwy but there has never been an adventure that I haven’t come back from with warm memories, tons of photos, and the anxious anticipation of the next trip.

In this instagrammable world of ours, we tend to add a filter to everything we post online (and even a filter to our real-life interactions, too). At least I do. I review my photos and if I don’t like the way I look, or if it’s a little out of focus, I won’t post it. Often I’ll delete it so I don’t have to wonder what in the world I was thinking when I took that particular photo. However, that’s not real life, is it? My hair isn’t always just so, the weather very often does not cooperate, and sometimes I just have a bad day – no matter the geographic location.

This never made it to my social media - the hat looks funny and I look tired

This is the story of Bethany and the unremarkable, frustrating, lonely, not-much-wonderful happened in Oslo day.

On a beautiful Saturday morning, I took the forty-minute train from Oslo City Center to Holmenkollen – the site of the 1952 Winter Olympics. Nothing went particularly wrong this day, but nothing really went right, either. Once I arrived at Holmenkollen, the “incidents” started. A couple walked directly at me, looked right at me, and then proceeded to bump into me. They were both shocked when they realized that I was not a figment of their imaginations. I am an animal person. I will notice the animal and go all gooey before I ever notice the human at the other end of the leash. There were a lot of dogs. I always ask permission to love on the dog, and usually, the dogs can’t wait for me to receive the nod from their owner and scratch their ears. Not today. While permission was granted, not a single dog showed any interest. On the train back to Oslo, I was sitting across from an ex-pat couple from Texas. I will talk to anyone and as I am interested in how they made the move to Norway, I attempted conversation. They tilted their heads as if they heard something faint off in the distance, looked at me, then proceeded with their conversation – totally ignoring my inquiry.

Walking back to my hotel, the feeling of isolation and invisibility continued to grow until I couldn’t see the loveliness in the quickly disappearing sun. Scooter riders bumped into me, couples holding hands would walk right in front of me without dropping their grip on the other, and cars would ignore me when I was in the crosswalk. I am sure that as my mood became greyer and greyer, the smallest slights encountered multiplied to personal insult. I finally arrived at my hotel, defeated and blue, and retreated to my room, breathtaking sights and wonders quickly buried under feelings of loneliness and resignation.

"Sleepless Night" Photo: Munchmuseet

I am very fortunate to be able to travel as much as I do. With each trip, I get to experience, see, and interact with this world and it fills me with happy bubbles to be out there. But it’s not all unicorns and rainbows. Sometimes the train is late (or canceled), the rain goes on forever and a day, sour moods prevail, and loneliness sneaks in. Bad days, just like good days, are valid and sometimes you have to wallow in the pits of despair before you look for the sunshine.

At Holmenkollen