This Flat is Bumpy (is monogamy really possible?)

A couple years ago, I saw the Czech Republic through the awkward-colored-glasses that I wear on Greenpeace trips.  I allowed activism to chew me up and allowed the Beauty of a large-scale forest occupation to swallow me down.  But, I saw it in this whirlwind of confusion and excitement and passion! I saw snippets of Prague that I adored, made a couple of truly great friends, and knew I’d visit again so that I could actually experience it on my own terms.

So, in October, I called my good friend Aleks to see when he’d be around Prague (his home).  I booked my ticket, told the cafe I was going away for a couple weeks, and off I went!  Don’t you love it when life actually happens like that??  And as I continue to grow up (if that’s what they call it these days), there’s pressure to seize these opportunities since they’re fewer and further between.   

I have a bajillion stories from this trip.  For three weeks, I explored every crevice of Prague, and got lost in a couple other Czech cities.  My heart was bear-hugged by Budapest and I cried when a violinist played on the Danube.  But, for now I’ll write about Aleks. 

Aleks and I met at the Greenpeace occupation a couple years ago, getting to know each other under the careful watch of Czech military police and electrifying campfires.  With a touch of his hand or kiss on my cheek,  he’d instantly make my knobby bruised knees so weak!  On our non-Greenpeace-occupied days, he took me to corners of his country I would have never found on my own. He has a featherlike gentleness about him that is especially endearing.  Thanks to the photo vortexes of Facebook and international texting price packages, we kept up on each other’s lives and continued to long for each other’s presence for two solid years.

So naturally, when I arrived in Prague in October, it was completely surreal falling into Aleks’ arms at the airport!  Two years became two minutes as we picked up right where we left off.   He whisked me away to his apartment (he deemed it a “flat”, since he learned English from a Londoner).   Aleks’ simple apartment was the perfect reflection of his essence that I so love.  High ceilings and cold floors, one big window that looks out onto one big tree.  Nothing on the walls but an empty bulletin board, and small carved initials of his current Czech girlfriend.  She knew I was coming into town.  I knew they were madly in Forever Love.  Everyone knew that Aleks and I needed to be with each other for a while, and that it didn’t matter since I would be hopping on a plane back to Missouri.

This story isn’t about the city we toured, the espresso-fueled conversations, or the wine-drenched sex.  But it’s about the connection I had with him during all of those things.  It’s the fact that even through a language barrier, we can still easily communicate — beyond words. It’s the fact that when I woke up one morning, I opened my eyes to Aleks looking straight into them, making my pupils smile from the inside out! And I realized at that moment, that it was that feeling that caused me to get on an 8-hour plane ride. When we travel, we search for something real, something we want to see to truly believe, we want to touch the untouched and climb higher.  We want proof that certain emotions and human sensations can exist — more so, we  want proof that we’re human.  For me, I travel when I feel my daily life is lacking something, whether it be adventure, adrenaline, romance, or crazy people.     This time, I had plenty of crazies and plenty of adrenaline, but my life in Missouri was otherwise romance-less, and my manipulative alcoholic partner couldn’t care less.  Just like the last time I was there, I didn’t go to Prague to see Prague; this time, I went to Prague to get lost in those abyssal looks from Aleks, and it was a damned good excuse to go somewhere far away as soon as possible.  

Now, after a couple days, Alexs had a film shoot to go work on in Spain, and invited me along.  Sure, I have always wanted to eat tapas in Barcelona and go see a bullfight, but I didn’t want those damned featherlight touches from Aleks to distract me from the glory of Spain.  He offered his apartment to me while he was away and I immediately accepted!  Now that I had my Aleks dose, I felt like a new woman!  So please! Go to Spain and have fun!  It’s time for Chelsea to be Chelsea!  Time to embrace Prague and go hunt down strange foods and old synagogues and delightful espressos.  I was so conflicted!  So thankful for every second spent with him, yet so thankful that he had to go to Spain!  I had the keys to a free private apartment in the center of Prague for an entire week.   SWEET.

So if things are really that good with someone in St. Louis — Aleks good — when does one of us run off and  bid sudden adieu? I keep waiting for the goodbye and it hasn’t happened yet.   My guard is so high because I’m meeting people I can go traveling with and come home to.  And when all we’re hunting for is human experience, my wanderlust lifestyle makes monogamy incredibly hard to believe in.      And it made me think , “if I lived in Prague, would I be as close with Aleks?” Maybe not.  Last night I got ridiculously drunk on whiskey and vodka, in search of that excitement my life is temporarily lacking, and I certainly found it… but it wasn’t without its repercussions.  I intruded on someone else’s otherwise devoted relationship, because I forget that monogamy matters.    The beauty of traveling is that we can justify running away from people and circumstances and mistakes.  I.E. “oops, train leaves in 6 hours, gotta go!” And for the first time in my life, I’m about to be very stationary with a new job and the lifestyle it dictates.  Weird.  And it frightens me.

So when can I pack my bags for Prague again?