One of the first trips I ever took solo was to Houston, TX. If I only knew then what I know now, I would have done it completely different. My friend Marcia was going to go with me to visit our college friend, Carol, who was living there after college and teaching school. It sounded like a fun trip!
I booked our airline tickets and reserved a hotel room near the airport. (Carol only had a small apartment and we didn’t want to impose on her the entire time we would be there.) When the time came for Marcia to reimburse me for her half of the costs, whattaya know, she had decided she really didn’t have the time to take off a day of work and go. She bailed on me while I was holding two airline tickets and a hotel room that wasn’t really even close to where Carol lived. I wasn’t going to eat the entire cost of the trip just because I would be flying alone. I was going!
I arrived in Houston and got checked into the hotel. After dropping my luggage in my room, I headed south to Carol’s address. I didn’t realize how long of a drive it would be from the airport to South Houston. Even though it was only about a 30 mile drive on interstate highways, there was also TRAFFIC from Rodeo to contend with along with a couple of toll highways.
After about 90 minutes of rental car acrobatics on the highways, I finally arrived at Carol’s apartment. We order a pizza and began catching up on what was going on in each other’s after-college world. At this point, Carol dropped a bit of a bomb shell by telling me she hadn’t yet been diagnosed, but considered herself to be an agoraphobic–she never left her apartment, except to go to work. Trying to be sympathetic, I told her to just let me know what she would be comfortable doing in the next 3 days while I would be visiting. Nothing, she was really comfortable doing nothing. I couldn’t imagine how difficult that made her life.
As that was sinking in–I was going to be on my own in a strange city for the next 3 days or sitting in Carol’s small apartment the entire time–Carol did agree to try to go out sightseeing with me the next day. Whew! I really wasn’t looking forward to hanging by myself in Houston!
The next morning, I went to Carol’s and picked her up. We headed to an area called the Kemah Boardwalk. We walked around the boardwalk for a while and went into some of the shops–I think it was the first time I had ever seen a Build-A-Bear Workshop (they were still a pretty new store back then)–and we found a spot to people watch for a while. We had a late lunch at Landry’s Seafood House, where I had the MOST INCREDIBLE Shrimp & Crab pasta that probably had at least a million calories in it. After wrapping up at Landry’s, we headed back to Carol’s. She said she was done being out for the day.
I, however, was not done. I really wanted her to go with me to the Gulf Greyhound Park to have a couple of beers and watch the greyhounds race. She was not up for it, but was kind enough to recruit one of her neighbors to go with me. (Oh geez! Since I did not know him from the man in the moon, I hoped he was not a real weirdo…) To this day, I don’t remember the guy’s name, but we had a good time at the race track. We had a couple of beers and I even taught him how to place bets on the races. We both came away with a little bit more money than we had when we got there.
The next day was a work day for Carol. My choices were to sit in my hotel room by myself, go hang out at Carol’s apartment for the day by myself, or make the drive further south to Galveston Island by myself. I opted for Galveston, which was really outside of my comfort zone at the time, but well worth it. It took just over an hour to make the drive. The weather was kind of gray and drizzley, but I was determined to make the most of it.
I quickly found a parking spot and began walking down Seawall Road. I walked halfway up the Pleasure Pier and I went into a number of little souvenir shops and did some shopping. I found some surfers on the beach that I ended up watching for a while, and I wound up walking into a Joe’s Crab Shack where I had a pretty awesome dinner of crab legs.
Since it was close to getting dark, I figured I’d better head back to my hotel. I had to be up early the next morning to catch my flight back home.
What a fun and liberating trip! I learned a few lessons along the way. I learned that sometimes it’s ok to go places by myself or with a stranger instead of missing out on a new place/experience. I also learned that agoraphobia is a very debilitating disorder and I hope anyone who suspects they have it get the help they need. I learned that while it’s fun to eat out, maybe I should venture away from the chain restaurants when I’m in a new city. (I can eat at Joe’s Crab Shack pretty much anywhere.) And finally, I learned to never cover for someone’s costs on a trip unless I really plan on covering their bookings. In hindsight, I can’t believe that I considered not going at all–it was worth all the lessons and memories!