What I Think About When I Think About What I Don’t Think About
My wife and I just celebrated our third wedding anniversary by sleeping in separate single beds.
After two days of Balkan travel, we completed the 13-mile trek across the Accursed Mountains in the Albanian Alps. The trek was tough, but we took our time, enjoying a koffee in each kafe along the way, filling our bottles with the spring water that flowed out of the mountains.
Tired and with achy, bleeding, knees, we arrived at the Sphella Guesthouse in the village of Theth; our home for the night.
“Goodman, Jonathan. Are you a Good-Man”
Our host said, as he smiled at me, waiting for a reaction to the joke that I’ve heard checking in to every hotel and guesthouse that I’ve ever stayed in.
– “Of course. My family is full of Good-Men.”
I say with a smile, delivering my rehearsed response.
Our Albanian host (average height, slim, and with a thick black beard) appeared satisfied with my joke and showed us upstairs to our room.
Inside the stone guesthouse we see three single beds and a door leading to our private toilet — a luxury in these parts. The shower is cold, so we wash off the dirt and the sweat from the hike but don’t linger.
That evening, after a communal dinner with guests from Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, the United States, and us, the sole Canadians, we head upstairs to snuggle up in the single middle bed and watch 3 episodes of Brooklyn Nine-Nine we’ve downloaded via Netflix before retreating to our own beds for sleep.
We sleep soundly after an active day, drifting off wondering how in the world we found ourselves celebrating our third wedding anniversary in single beds in a tiny village in the North of Albania.
To some reading, I expect that this adventure I’ve briefly described sounds like a dream. The dream. The definition of wunderlust.
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For others reading, I imagine that what I’ve just described sounds miserable. It is not a beach and it is not the type of thing you’ll ever see a 21-year old Instagram Influencer who knows nothing of the world bragging about doing.
It is gritty and it is grimy and it is glorious. For Alison and I, it is perfect.
Joy is not an objective emotion. It is best felt when preceded by hardship. Experience enriches. The best lives are the ones that include struggle and strife. In order to love, you must hurt. In order to feel joy, you must feel pain. This necessary juxtaposition in experience is often missing in our too-easy lives.
The following morning we woke up on separate beds. The substandard curtains that seem standard issue in places where the sun rises at 4am do not block the sun and the room is bright.
I removed my makeshift blindfold, my only shirt, a v-neck t from Unbound Merino, off of my eyes and allow them to slowly adapt to the light. After a few seconds of adjustment I saw Alison looking at me from the other bed, smiling. We said good morning and that we love one another. Then, I got up to pee and invited myself into her bed for a morning snuggle, dragon breath and all.
The pillow talk that morning mostly consisted of a report from each party on which body parts were most sore. She cracked her hip and I popped my back before walking downstairs for breakfast.
“Everything is home-made.”
Our thick-bearded host told me.
The butter, the eggs, the honey, and even the wine you drank last night are made here.
I was especially thankful for the honey because the horrible coffee needed two heaping spoon-fulls to be palatable. After a few sips, I could think my morning thoughts and shared them with Alison.
I told her how special it was that we don’t spend our time thinking about most things. Neither of us follows celebrity gossip, or political gossip, or the financial markets. And we have any idea what new movies are coming out or what in-vogue TV show is trending.
It’s not just that we don’t know about these things. It’s deeper than that. We don’t even think about thinking about them.
Until the morning after a 3-day adventure in the North of Albania, I’ve never even thought that we don’t think about these things.
For better or for worse, the apparent obsessions of so many others are foreign constructs to us. This is neither good nor bad. I’m not writing this to appear more noble or evolved. Perhaps some thinking on politics or the financial markets would serve me well. I don’t know if not thinking about this stuff is a good thing or not. It’s just something that I was thinking about.
