In a couple of weeks I’m taking a trip, kind of spontaneously, and I’m a little nervous, but I’m trying to look at it as an adventure. I don’t have many of those.

I travel very rarely. As a kid, my family took yearly, sometimes twice yearly vacations. I went with my college roommate to the UK in 1987; alone to North Wales in 2009; to visit friends in Denver in 2011. As an adult, three trips in three decades are not very much.

I’d like to travel more, but money is certainly one issue. I’ve also only recently begun to enjoy some of my own time alone. I always hated the aloneness, but I started taking random ‘field trips’ and where once I thought eating alone in a restaurant was sad and lonely, I kind of like it now. I have time to think. I have space to write. And lunch in an actual restaurant is about the same price as going to McDonald’s or getting an actual meal at Starbucks without the noisy, bustling background. I also like libraries and parks with trees, but that’s me.

I am also a very nervous traveler. I couldn’t get on the last two airplanes without a special talisman to calm my nerves (as well as a prescription pharmaceutical). I travel so seldom that it churns up my stomach and I hate all of the things you need to do for travel with the packing, security, where to put my bags once I get onboard, who will I sit with and a million other anxieties tied up into what amounts to a fifteen minute procedure.

This upcoming trip is by train, and I’m excited (mostly); I haven’t been on a train since my first trip to the UK on BritRail. This journey will be twelve hours between onboard and changing trains in NYC with just enough time to buy breakfast. Is it wrong that I am really, really looking forward to a real NY egg bagel with cream cheese? On the way back, I’m hoping for a knishe. Oh, it’s been too long! And of course, another fifteen hours back including a five hour layover.

I always feel that I need to bring everything but the kitchen sink just in case. What if I need X, Y or Z? When I travel by air, I have the need to buy a bottle of water and a Time magazine. I’m not sure why that is and I don’t know if that little ritual will hold up for Amtrak. I should be able to bring my own water and save three dollars. I always bring a snack that I almost never eat and my journal which was missing for a while. This trip, I also have the luxury of a Kindle Fire, which will most certainly be welcome.

Although after much searching, I’ve finally found my special journal that’s gone with me to Wales and Denver, been to Tea Tastings when I was notating the experience, and my Fall Writing Retreat both in 2012. I will be sad when this journal is all full. I should have enough pages for this trip, possibly one more, but no guarantee of that.

The main reason for this trip is friendship with a side of fandom. I was supposed to visit my best friend before the summer, but that fell through so when he suggested coming for the fandom party/dinner/viewing of the finale of this season’s Supernatural, I rearranged my schedule to be there. There will be good friends, committed fans, good food and of course, the finale.

I haven’t done one of these types of things since the days of Star Trek: The Next Generation, possibly Deep Space Nine. Yes, my family does make a big deal of Doctor Who night and my son got the dinner he begged for: fish fingers and custard, and our weekend schedule does revolve around Green Lantern: The Animated Series, and this weekend is Free Comic Book Day, but I haven’t been to a convention (maybe soon, though – *crosses fingers*) in about a decade. For the weekly watching of Star Trek, we would head to our friend’s house and we would get chicken parm heros and drink soda and eat ice cream and laugh loudly and cheer and gape at the wonder of the Enterprise and her crew.

Now, it is a new group, a new fandom, very Supernatural-type Americana/diner food and I’m excited for it. Apart from my best friend, I have not met anyone who will be there. To begin a friendship with a base already in place is one of the wonderful things about fandom. Hey, I know your name, and we like this thing and yes, I think we can be friends, pass me a chip.

There is something so brilliant about people and food and traditions that are continued by new people and while it’s different, it’s the same or at least similar, and in some cases it’s better, and it’s really comfortable. We don’t know each other, but we kind of know each other. I am a tiny bit nervous, but that’s just my personality bleeding through. It’s not at all like going to my sister’s and explaining what fan fiction is or how I know that Misha Collins’ wife just published a book on stewardesses or why I care or why I laugh harder than everyone else when a Moose shows up on the local news in someone’s swimming pool or confuse her by rattling off my own personal canon for Harry Potter.

My sister is a fan of many things, but she is not in fandom and that is sad.

The second part (or first….) of my quick trip is visiting friend; good friend. We talk often but see each other infrequently (sadly) and I’m looking forward to this very much. We only get one day together before the fannish things begin and the good thing is we are both in better places since we last saw each other and he gets to show me around his town and his animals and his space and we get to talk and talk and catch up on and store extra hugs and make more plans, and it gives me time to breathe and remember how to do that and not worry about this school thing or that financial thing and I’ll gather ideas and prompts to occupy my second ride on the rails for the trip back.

I would love to travel more; just get up and go.

This little thing has been just an introduction. I hope to have more stories about my trips, past and future wanna-be’s, things I’ve learned, things I’ve forgotten, places I want to see and things I want to do. My mind yearns to take my kids places but it also yearns to go out into the world by myself. My most recent visit to Wales was that. I traveled alone, did things that I would have refused if you asked me first and I learned how to be by myself, which is always a good thing.

We all need that time to ourselves, to find ourselves and be available to the others in our lives and that is the one thing that I want when I travel; to come back a slightly different person.

If I know, I’ll let you know who I am when I get back.