A friend spoke to me recently about my yearly Las Vegas trip that I always take on Labor Day, saying to “start new traditions” since I’ll be flying solo and won’t be requesting the aid or the company of anybody else. What they didn’t know was that I was way ahead of them by letting that happen because I made a surprise trip to Hawaii that I revealed much later after I landed back home, I was afraid of others close to me talking me out of going due to what was still going on in the world. I made the change in late July because I came to the hard realization that I’d rather be lonely on an island than to return to a place where heartbreak kept happening, there was no point for me to come back to a place where disappointment kept happening to where I would have no choice but to remember. As much as I did not want to return to a beautiful place like Hawaii alone I was also anxious to see what was waiting for me to venture on my own, the only thing stopping me was me at this point.
Even before landing on the state of palm trees and clear blue water, I immediately had a new appreciation for what was to come just by looking through the window seat of the land and the ride to the hotel. Revisiting some of the familiar sights from my first adventure was a treat because I didn’t realize how magical they were which I can during my second time around, for example: after studying and shooting the sunsets back at home for over a little over a year gave a higher appreciation with the rich orange colors of the beautiful Hawaiian sunsets that honestly changed the way I viewed what I had done before. Doing three hikes in two days was a new milestone for me as well, first doing the previous view from six years ago was as beautiful as I remembered it, then the well-known one that had a brilliant overlook of the many building surrounding an inactive volcano, but my favorite was walking through a forest to see not because of the waterfall but because the journey there was covered in green. Being there was a photographer's dream, comparing my shots from the first adventure to now was one of the biggest challenges I thought I would have this year though I was pretty confident I nailed it pretty well within the first two days. Despite everything I was seeing and doing during my 4 days there, there was one thing missing.
The interesting part about this trip was that if being outside in the daytime made me feel like I could do anything then being alone at night was the thing that made me feel the most vulnerable, some accomplishments are best celebrated with other people and that was one of those times where I wished it was. Imagine walking on the beach at night (because there are no laws at night) with nothing but sand, the stars, the clouds, the sound of the waves as your soundtrack, with nobody else there, and you had no one else to share that moment with. Although I loved being there every aspect of the way and I did enjoy being there alone, at the same time it was lonely not having to share many moments with someone else. This doesn’t necessarily mean that I wished it was with my best friend or the woman I was involved with after per se, but I wouldn’t want to go with someone I wasn’t romantically in a situation with. I revealed my vacation to social media on Friday at midnight shortly after I returned from my flight back home, after being swapped with messages about traveling alone that were majority female followers only proved my point even more. “Did you really go be yourself?” was usually the following up behind “Did you have fun?”, I expected that was going to happen as well. I personally wouldn’t mind going back to Hawaii by myself (even though I wouldn’t prefer it) but I can’t deny how much of a great time I had being out there, I will reveal this though.. as I watched the last sunset fully descend into the water my last words were: “mahalo”.
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