Travel and RA: A Reprise

I'm just getting back from a beach vacation in Jekyll Island, GA. It's about 3 and a half hours away from where I live in north Florida. While I had an amazing time at the beach —it was so nice to get away after working too much (both with my job and as a grad student— I had a couple of realizations that I wanted to share.

Most of these realizations come from realizing that the last time I had gone to Jekyll Island was in 2009 or so and about how much has changed since the time between visiting Jekyll at those different phases of my life.

Memories of Jekyll Island

Jekyll is a beautiful place to visit and has recently experienced a lot of development that didn't use to be there. There's a new downtown, new restaurants, all of these things coming together to create a new experience at the island.

Some of my fondest times there —both this time and when I was a child— were spent on the beach, at the pool, and simply relaxing and taking in the sun. There was delicious seafood, ice cream, special sweets like pralines, and more. All of these memories had a feeling of fun, rest, relaxation, and I keep those memories close.

Beach vacations are different now

But these memories have become troubled now. In 2009, I was still a child of course and, because of that, vacation had a different meaning and idea. It was more about doing everything I wanted to do, having the most fun possible, and constantly going from place to place — basically, having no time for rest.

A 3 activity maximum

Flash forward to 2021, and rest is the name of the game. I recognized that this time, I had to scale back on the things I wanted to do in an act of listening to my body. What's hard is that most people my age wouldn't have to consider this (since most of them don't have RA), but I saw in my vacation a yearning for not having to think about RA, for wanting to go to the beach, then shopping, then to eating, then to go on a run, then to go on a bike and then a hike and then everything else I wanted.

But now I have to select at a maximum of 3 of those, and if I don't... well, the consequences definitely arise. I can't really depend on my body anymore as a way to enjoy my vacation - I have to enjoy the vacation for and by myself, even when my body is working against me.

RA is with me everywhere I go

What is it like to come back to a place that I held in my heart as a fond memory only to have it reconfigured within the context of RA.

Something that I had never considered before about having RA is that I take this disease everywhere I go: physically, because it lives inside me but mentally because I'm reliving and experiencing old and new memories in the same vein - a profoundly troubling phenomenon because it destabilizes my lived experience, both in the past and the present moment.