When I began planning the trip, the idea was to be big and luxurious; it was our honeymoon after all. After my fiancé broke things off and after he begged and cried and after I reminded him that he wanted other things, I began the sad process of cancelling our reservations —the caterer, the baker, the candlestick maker. When my finger ran down the list, it passed by the travel agent. Again and again I looked right past it and went about cancelling other plans, lamenting with my mother about lost deposits and crying about my newfound loneliness.
Soon the only item on the list was this grand cruise. This wonderful once-in-a lifetime voyage that our favorite band was hosting. This fantastic opportunity that caused us to change our wedding date and rearrange our finances so we wouldn’t miss it. I tapped my finger on the page, on that listing. I rewrote the information on a new, unmarked piece of paper and called.
“How much if I travel alone?” I asked. “How much if I change to a smaller room—one without a balcony?”
I told them I would call back.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
I called my mother, crying. “Momma, go on a cruise with me?”
By the end of the week, she was going. Her husband and another couple and some guy they knew had made reservations, but I was still going to be by myself in this big suite with a wide-open balcony.
That’s when I thought of Lenna. I guessed she had never been on a trip and if anyone deserved a week of pampering, it was Lenna. In her mid-forties, she supported herself and a teenage daughter by cleaning houses. She was always saving for this or trying to catch up from that.
The cost of traveling alone versus bringing along a roommate was nominal. With a year to go before the launch date, I knew Len would be able to cover her plane fare and incidentals.
We met for dinner a week later. She wanted to discuss the details, wanted to make sure I was serious. After a little convincing and some cheesecake, she was in, and the planning began.
I wasn’t sure how I would handle the trip, but I had a year and I was determined to move on and grow past the pain in my heart. I got two kittens. I enrolled in college. I ate dessert whenever I wanted. I researched our ports of call and sent out a warning that I wanted to go on excursions on my own, that people should do what they wanted and not plan around me. I wanted the freedom to crawl back to bed and cry in the middle of the Caribbean if I needed to without ruining anyone’s day.
The months moved by, and the excitement of the trip was tickling us all. We would send each other hourly countdowns and little-known facts about Roatan, Belmopan, or Chichen Itza. We prowled the band’s website and called each other the second they made any announcement about anything, whether it affected us or not. By the time our plane boarded for Miami, I was happy to be single and free to travel without my ex-man whining and worrying about what we left turned on or what we forgot.
Lenna and I pre-ordered flowers, wine and casino tokens for everyone’s room, including our own. The first thing we did on the ship was get a massage. We supped and napped and boogied all night. The morning we woke in Grand Cayman’s harbor we ran to the top of the ship in our nightgowns to take pictures of the sun rising on a day that promised adventure.
I wandered around town and watched the locals while pretending to read their news. I took countless pictures of flowers—in bloom in January!—and accidentally ran into my mother, who was kicked off the diving boat due to an old ear malady. She had $20 and spent it with a corn-row lady. I bought her a bottle of rum, and we took pictures with strangers at the café where we ate fine chocolate on the porch and watched the expensive cars cruise by.
On day three, Lenna and I went horseback riding by the Belize River in the rain forest. We saw wild iguanas and monkeys hanging from the trees. I accidentally flashed one of our guides when the underwire of my bra caught on the Western-style saddle as I dismounted, only to realize that my comfortable khaki pants had split on the ride—all along the inseam and across my pantyless rear. Lenna found a fellow traveler with a sarong and saved the day.
I took the two-plus hour bus to Chichen Itza on my own and made friends with the married guy sitting next to me after my nap; he woke me when I began drooling in my sleep. I loved every moment spent lingering over the history and drama left in the walls of the Mayan ruins. I crawled to the top of the famous pyramid, hands and feet on the steep stairs, with my wide-brimmed straw hat covering my face so I wouldn’t be troubled by the number of steps left until the top. A stranger took my picture, the dense jungle swallowing the edges of the ruins in the background. I stood at the top for half an hour, back pressed against the cold stone, and watched as others slid back to the grassy ground on their butts or clung to each other, wobbling. I walked down, easy and slow, one foot after the other as graceful as a trained princess. The mango margarita at the concession stand is still the best I’ve ever had. I only wish I’d gotten two.
We drank too much. We ate too much. We laughed until we ached. We picked our drunken friends up in the hallway of the ship, on the wrong floor, after the band played their concerts and giggled all the way to bed. Our room looked like a circus; every souvenir we bought decorated it—scarves, festival masks, candle holders. We slept, peaceful, with the balcony door open and woke gently, in time for the start of our day’s agenda, to room service rapping at the door with our coffee and fruit.
Occasionally someone would give me an extra squeeze or ask how I was doing. “Great,” I smiled. “Great.”
It was days after we returned, after my sea legs disappeared, that I understood what my friends and family were doing. They hadn’t been there to see me glide down the steep pyramid stairs, but I think they knew, as I do now, that one foot after the other, slow and easy, is the only way to go.
Rhiannon Bowman is a journalism student at UNC-Charlotte and an aspiring freelance writer. She is a happy newlywed. She and her well-traveled husband just returned from a spontaneous train trip to Atlanta and called it practice for their European honeymoon that is yet to come.