ex•pe•ri•ence hang•o•ver
1. That punched in the stomach feeling you get when an amazing experience ends and you find yourself lost without a guess in the world about what you're supposed to do next. Like the day you come home from summer camp and everything looks dull and all you can think about is going back next year.
There are these moments when traveling that no matter how hard I try, I can't capture. It doesn't matter how many pictures I take or how many words I write, there's nothing I can do to explain what it's like to stand on a beach at one in the morning under an Alaska sun than never really set but turned the sky a burning orange color.
Or what it's like to hike all day to get to a backcountry camp ground with three of your closest friends, set up camp and an hour later find a bear sniffing around the bear box where all your food is stored.
In those moments I don't even know how I feel, there's just this sense of wonderment. It's the only time I truly feel lucky to be alive.
And when I come back from a trip like that, there's this let down, like I've been cheated out of something. I spend a lot of time blinking my eyes and looking around, hoping that I'll blink one too many times and wake up on a beach in Hawaii again.
Experience is the only currency that matters. No one cares how much money you make or what kind of car you drive. No one cares that you're a "very important person." And if they do, that's exactly the kind of person you want to run screaming from.
The people I like the most are the ones that violently throw themselves outside their comfort zone. Who go find interesting parts of themselves and explore them. I like people who are more afraid of regretting the things they failed than the things they did.
I like my experience hangovers. They hurt like crazy but they tell me that I've just been through something extraordinary. They tell me that I've now got a memory that I'm going to carry with me the rest of my life.
Posted by Ben Corman at 9:40 AM