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A few months ago, I texted my friend Chris and didn't hear back for several days, which was weird.
Was he ignoring me?
Well, it turns out he was in London and his trip got complicated.
I went to a restaurant called the Dutch Pancake House, because who doesn't love a good Dutch pancake when they're in London?
And my phone was in my coat pocket and my coat was draped over the chair and I'm sitting and eating and A woman comes up to me.
She's quite frantic.
Needs my help.
And her children need my help.
And I'm just like overwhelmed by this all.
My mouth is full of Dutch pancake.
And I finally am able to sort of convince her that I can't help her.
After this woman leaves, Chris goes to grab his phone.
And it's gone.
He'd been scammed.
I just froze up a moment.
I think because I was in shock, I went into stealth mode of...
Like I need to get back to my hotel so I can get on my laptop and I can do find my phone and I can shut off my phone, report it as lost.
Take Apple Pay off of it.
But the first thing I needed to do was try to get back to my hotel, because I didn't have a phone to give me directions anymore.
In that moment, I was just sort of like, this is the first time that I felt like helpless in a city.
In the end, Chris was fine.
He found his hotel and eventually got home to Massachusetts.
It was all very annoying, but Chris would be the first to admit it's also a first-world problem.
You see, Chris has gotten very good at navigating the planet alone.
He's learned how to enjoy experiences by himself, but also how to just roll with it when things aren't so enjoyable.
In jet-setting from the cafes of Paris to the bamboo forests of Japan.
Chris has grown more comfortable in his skin, more independent.
But he wasn't always this way.
How he got to this confident place is a long winding story that involves some of the most beautiful places in the world.
Come along, won't you?
From the Boston Globe and PRX, this is Love Letters.
I'm Meredith Goldstein.
So there's this trope we all know well.
It's the story of a woman who suffers a great heartbreak, maybe a bad breakup, and sets off on a journey.
She finds an inner strength she never knew she had by traveling far from home and discovering who she is without all of her creature comforts.
In Eat, Pray, Love, a heroine gets a divorce and then goes to Italy, India, and Bali.
In Under the Tuscan Sun.
A woman gets a divorce, goes to Tuscany and builds a home and an entirely new life.
There's even the 2016 movie How to Be Single, in which Dakota Johnson's character decides, after a bad dating experience, to take off on an adventure.
The movie leaves her standing over the Grand Canyon, feeling alive.
The thing about being single is, you should cherish it.
Because in a week or a lifetime of being alone, you may only get one moment, one moment when you're not tied up in a relationship with anyone.
There's a real lesson in all of these stories that you can heal and become better through travel, especially if you do it alone.
In this season of finding help in unexpected places, I wanted to explore the idea that travel can change us and maybe make us better at our relationships at home.
I knew I had a person in my life who'd be able to tell me whether this was true.
It's my friend and colleague, who is a very frequent flyer.
I'm Christopher Muther, and I'm the travel writer and columnist for the Boston Globe.
I know what you're thinking.
Chris has a dream job.
And you're right.
It's a lot of work, but it's very, very cool.
Basically, Chris goes everywhere, from gritty to gorgeous.
He's stayed in outlandish spas, visited exotic islands.
One time he wound up staying at this cabin in Vermont, which was like out of a horror movie.
And it turned out he was surrounded by a cult.
No matter the experience.
The Boston Globe pays for the trips, so Chris can write about his escapades objectively.
In the decade he's been doing the job, he's been to the far ends of the earth, which is kind of wild because I've always known him to be a very local guy.
I grew up in north central Massachusetts, a lovely town called Athol.
Athol is a dead mill town.
Right now they have a Walmart, which is more than they had when I was growing up.
This will surprise you, Meredith, but I'm gay.
I know, shocked.
I can see the expression on your face.
And so, as a young fledgling gay homosexual in a dead mill town in north central Massachusetts, things were a little challenging.
Meaning I was the kid who listened to the weird music, who bleached my hair and then dyed it blue, and then dyed it black and then back to blonde.
And then as Amy Winehouse would say, back to black.
Yeah.
And so, you know, things were not, I would say, the easiest for me.
Was it the breakfast club?
Like what were the vibes of like high school, let's say?
It was definitely a pretty in pink kind of vibe or a 16 candles kind of vibe.
Everything was very regimented.
You know, there were the jocks, there were the freaks, there were the dweebs, the spazzes and just the sort of like the untouchables.
And I'm like, there were no gay characters in any of those movies.
So they were just off screen.
Exactly.
They were like someone's best friend, but they were shoved in a locker.
So you never saw them when they were on screen.
You're like, the locker is closed and inside of it is someone who may or may not be gay.
Yeah.
Exactly.
And they're staring at a poster of Boy George because it's in front of their face and they're stuck in a locker the whole time.
It's a metaphor, that locker.
It really is.
Despite feeling like an outsider, Chris does have some romances.
There was a girl who I had a crush on, which I know sounds odd, but it was more like we liked the same kind of music.
I thought she was cool.
So she was dating a guy.
And I thought the way to get closer to her was to get in between her and the guy.
And I ended up dating the guy.
It's kind of a homewrecker.
But I was 15 or something.
And by dating, I mean we used to write notes to each other.
And when we went to see the Olivia Newton-John John Travolta movie Twist of Fate, we got handsy with each other in the movie theater.
Wait, her or him?
Oh, him.
Chris doesn't date much more in high school.
He goes to college nearby at UMass Amherst.
It's there where he meets someone important at an LGBTQ movie night.
It was a screening of Torch Song Trilogy.
And the screen, I know, can't get any more predictable or 80s, can it?
Can you use a couple of bucks, Arnold?
Just till you're on your feet.
I'm on my feet, Daddy.
Yeah, in six-inch heels.
Actually, it was the 90s by this point, but...
The VCR that they were trying to show it on wasn't working.
And no one could figure it out.
And this guy, this like handsome, cute guy, got up and like fixed it.
We're going to call the handsome VCR guy, Josh, to protect his privacy.
Chris and Josh get to know each other and eventually start dating.
It's clear from the beginning that they are from very different worlds.
He was in grad school.
I was an undergrad.
And he was sort of like the...
The nice Jewish boy.
Everyone in the family was a doctor.
They had a summer house in the Berkshires, so they could go to Tanglewood and all of that.
So it was like opposite, and I was enthralled by it all.
They move in together when Chris is a senior in college, and those first few years are wonderful.
Chris and Josh live in western Massachusetts for a time, until Chris eventually gets a job in Boston.
They both wind up living and working in town.
But as the years progress and Chris matures, the relationship with Josh starts to feel... different.
It started to feel more like he was a sibling rather than he was a boyfriend, fiance, husband.
However, when you come from a small town and at the age of 20 you enter into your first relationship and it's comfortable you just kind of get lazy and stay there.
At least I did.
It's not just about laziness.
There's another reason Chris feels the need to stay in an exclusive relationship with someone he knows and cares about.
Remember, it's still the early 90s.
And so AIDS is like still a thing.
And I had been terrified to like have sex with people because, you know, growing up in the 80s it was always like if you, you know very special episode of family ties, you know it's like if you touch Skippy the wrong way, something might happen.
So I was very cautious.
And so that continued into the 90s because I knew friends who were HIV positive and they who had AIDS and who passed away.
And all of that weighed in my brain.
In 2004, Massachusetts becomes the first state where same-sex marriage is legal.
This brings up new questions for Chris and Josh.
And Josh knows what he wants.
He proposed, and it was sort of like, well, I guess we're still together.
Everyone was also asking, when are you going to get married?
As soon as it became legal.
So it was like this kind of peer pressure of getting married thing that happened.
And so we got married.
I remember going to the house you were living at the time, being a slightly younger person and being like this is the life.
Like.
This is a double income, no children household with like mid-century modern furniture.
From my memory and
Just like this is someone who has it all figured out.
I'm sure there were moments like that.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, for the most part, there were moments like that.
But then there were also moments where I would stop and step back and realize that it probably wasn't what it should be.
I hadn't really dated in a traditional sense the way a lot of people do before they settle down.
He was kind of like college sweetheart.
So therefore, like it got to the point where The older I got, the more I thought I was going to use the Peggy Lee song.
Is that all there is?
Chris realizes he needs to leave.
He's not proud of how he makes this happen.
I handled it all as tactfully as a raccoon in a trash can.
Despite the fact that I'm a writer, I'm horrible at communication.
So one night I was DJing.
It was the night before my 30th, eighth birthday and I had met a sort of fallen into this group of like young, cool gays, the kind of gays I hadn't met before.
And I thought, oh my God, I could be this.
Wait, am I what's going on with my life?
So the night of the birthday party, I got home.
It was two in the morning, three in the morning.
And I said to him, I want a divorce.
Absolutely out of nowhere.
And he was shocked.
And then he said, you know, we can do whatever.
We can move into the city.
We can, you know, whatever it takes.
We can talk to a therapist.
No, I want a divorce.
I was like very adamant.
And my mind was stuck there.
And so we got a divorce.
The divorce process is pretty civil.
They use a mediator to sell their house.
It's final. early in 2009, after three years of marriage and 18 years together in total.
Chris moves into an apartment closer to downtown Boston.
My mind immediately was like, the world is my oyster.
Here I come.
Watch out, fellas.
And then just started like going out.
I wasn't like open for business, as they say, but I was then sort of turning the key, opening the door slightly.
Chris dates around a bit, Actually, not for very long.
Because after a few months of casual dating, he meets someone he likes.
We'll call him Kyle.
There used to be something called Gorilla Queer Bar in Boston, which is when a bunch of gay folks would take over a straight bar.
And it would happen once a month.
And there was one time that I was going and some friends were getting dinner beforehand.
And Kyle was there at the table.
And it was like, thought he was extraordinarily handsome.
And I didn't even think that he had considered or looked my way.
And then the next day, he sent a message on Facebook.
Chris isn't exactly ready to be fully committed to another person, but he likes Kyle enough to try an exclusive relationship.
And over time, he really falls for Kyle.
Josh was a computer person.
Kyle was a scientist.
So I tend to be drawn to people who are the opposite of me.
And Kyle was really the opposite of me because he had blonde hair and blue eyes and super charming, really smart.
The other part of the appeal was like I was so enamored with him physically and always thinking that I was never as handsome as most people.
So that was like part of it was like, oh, my God.
Here's someone who actually thinks I'm semi-attractive, or at least not repulsive, which you know is a step in the right direction.
By 2011, Chris and Kyle have been together for almost two years.
They're not living together, but they're pretty serious.
Chris, who at the time is covering style and fashion for the Boston Globe, pitches a story to the travel section about St
Barts, the French-speaking Caribbean island.
I had wanted to do a story about St.
Barts because I love all things French.
And my favorite 1960s pop singer, his name is Johnny Holiday, had a summer place in St.
Barts.
And I knew he was there like for the season.
I really wanted to run into him because it's a small island.
So I'd made this plan and Kyle and I are going to go to St.
Barts.
It's a romantic thought, a perfect vacation-slash-work assignment.
There's just one problem.
Before the trip, Kyle starts to pull away.
He gets into a habit of canceling plans.
Chris starts to feel like he's not Kyle's first priority.
And then, well, you can probably guess what happens next.
So we were at a friend's 40th birthday party and it was like the friend of immaculate taste is like an A-list gay who.
His partner had like pillows made with the guy's face on it all over the place.
And it was like, you know, like perfection.
And so we're off like picking through appetizers.
And it's one of those conversations where he's sort of middling about.
You know, we had something going on that weekend.
And he was like, well, I'm not sure.
I haven't been feeling well.
And I said, Kyle, do you want to break up?
And he said, yes.
And I was shocked that he said yes.
And then I started getting really dramatic because it's a gay birthday party.
So it's what you have to do.
It's like, imagine it's like one of those bad gay movies from the early aughts.
I'm trying to think who would be playing me.
Don't say John Cryer because I know you want to say John Cryer.
No, well, you brought up Pretty in Pink.
I mean, I know who would play Kyle.
Who would play Kyle?
It would be basically like a shorter Brad Pitt.
Sure, sure.
Okay.
I will say that...
America forever would play me.
Okay.
I can picture it vividly and I'm all for it.
Okay.
All right.
So what happens America?
The conversation devolves, escalates to the point where I'm like my voice is starting to raise a little too much and I'm very conflict averse, as you may have gathered by my overly extended relationships.
And I storm out of the back of the restaurant and I'm like crying and he came out and he's like trying to comfort me.
And I said, if you're comforting me because you want to stay together, then that's great.
Otherwise go away.
And I like sat on the curb and just cried and he was still trying to comfort me.
I yelled at him to go away.
He went home.
I got into bed and stayed there for a couple of days.
So Chris is now going through a very bad breakup.
But his trip to St.
Barts?
That's still on the agenda.
He had pitched the story.
So like a dutiful journalist, he goes through with it.
I'm in this romantic seaside villa.
I still very specifically remember there was a full moon over the water.
I...
Went to dinner at the restaurant.
I sat down.
I'm by myself.
I'm surrounded by couples who are having beautiful dinners by candlelight.
There's a cat that jumped up and sat next to me on the seat.
Her name was Cookie, because I asked the waiter.
It was a beautiful scene all around, except I at that moment would wish I had been anywhere else but St.
Bart's.
I went back and found the story Chris wrote about that St.
Bart's trip.
He talks about being surrounded by lovers nuzzling and holding hands.
He refers to Cookie the cat as the ideal companion for the night.
The piece is very funny, but it was clearly written by a sad person.
It was also the first time that I had traveled internationally by myself.
Up until this point and I had traveled like a fair amount and had written a few stories for the travel section, but it was always with friends, or it was with Josh, or it was Kyle.
So this was also my first international trip.
And for people who don't travel solo, it's kind of jarring to do because all of a sudden you're stuck with yourself.
And it's easy for all of us to get distracted all the time by other people, our phones, whatever.
But when you're suddenly in a situation where you're in a restaurant in St.
Barts with a full moon, you can't help but be stuck with your thoughts.
At this point, Chris is in his early 40s.
He's single with barely any experience being alone.
And he realizes he has no idea what he wants.
He feels lost.
He's a lot like those protagonists we know from all the books and movies whose life is about to change.
We'll explain how it happens for him when we come back.
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We're all out of the ordinary.
There's a battle playing out right now over who should control American universities.
We're going to bankrupt these universities.
In season one, we were guessing what was to come.
Now, we know.
We want nothing less than $500 million from Harvard.
From the Boston Globe and on the media, it's season two of The Harvard Plan.
This time, it really is personal.
Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
Okay, we're back.
So in 2011, Chris had been dumped after a two-year relationship with a guy named Kyle.
He is a mess.
And at the time, I had no idea.
Honestly, back then, I would have never guessed he was that upset.
First of all, he's a good faker.
At work and at parties, he always presents as a hilarious, happy guy.
Also to me, Chris had seemed pretty good after he ended his marriage, which was a relationship that lasted almost two decades.
I never thought this much shorter relationship with Kyle was such a big deal.
I was wrong.
Not only was Chris the dumped, he felt like shit about himself.
Even before the breakup, one of the people who Kyle had a gentleman's intermission with was very fit.
And I thought, this is happening because I'm fat.
So I basically stopped eating.
Oh, God.
Yeah.
And I just kept going to the gym.
Actually during this time, I started going to the gym a lot.
I didn't eat anything.
Meanwhile, I decided to punish myself by calling it my summer of abstinence.
So I'm really like objectively hot at this point, gay hot because I'm skinny and I've worked out, and but I'm like denying myself anything because I feel so terrible.
St.
Bart's was within that period.
And then I went to Provincetown a few times, miserable the whole time, hating the world.
Why is Chris so miserable?
Well, some of it is that because he'd met Josh at 20 and he had ended that relationship, he'd never been on the losing end of an adult breakup.
But there are also some other health issues at play.
When the breakup with Kyle happened...
I was already seeing a therapist and the therapist was sort of like you need more help than I can give you.
And so I saw a psychiatrist and the psychiatrist we sort of talked and talked went through a whole bunch of, basically tests.
The psychiatrist determined that I was bipolar, bipolar two or, as I call it, Catherine Zeta-Jones disease, because at the time that I was diagnosed as bipolar II, there was a headline in People Magazine about Catherine Zeta-Jones coming out as bipolar II.
So therefore she gets the name.
So, along with all of that, during that summer, I'm experimenting with new medications to try to like help me.
So that's like, my stability is off even further.
At the end of 2011.
While all of this is going on and Chris is figuring out a treatment plan, he goes to a Christmas party hosted by one of our colleagues.
He's also gay.
And so a lot of his friends were there.
And Alex was one of the people who was there, this guy Alex.
He's charming.
He's smart.
And he's sort of checking the scientist's computer left brain box very quickly.
Alex, that's his real name, by the way, is a doctor.
At the time, he's the medical director at Fenway Health, a place known for its mission to serve the LGBTQIA plus community and really anyone who needs help.
As a doctor, he was kind of general practice isn't the right word, but sort of a bit of everything.
But with a specialty in at that point, a lot of HIV, a lot of trans health.
And again, this was a few years ago where trans health wasn't as widely addressed as it is now.
So he was a bit of a pioneer around all of that.
Alex is very good-looking, brainy, kind.
Chris had been on some platonic outings with people while figuring out his mental health.
But when he meets Alex, he thinks, maybe I could try a real date again.
We went to drink for our date, and it was wonderful.
It was great.
And I should say drink is a location, not just you went out to drink.
You went out to a place called drink.
Thank you for that clarification.
Just for the out-of-towners, you know.
Yeah, exactly.
We went to drink.
I mean, that sounds like every sentence I say anyway, so it's good that you clarified that.
It was a really fun date.
And so from there, you know, things kind of propelled forward, I guess.
Very quickly, it became clear, like, this was different.
I knew this was different because, as you know, in dating, and especially gay dating, there's like this weird anxiety about early days.
Like everything needs to be perfect.
I'm going to see someone.
I've got to make sure that I've washed my hair or I made my bed, or whatever.
And there was one night, shortly after we went on a few dates, that Alex texted me and said what are you doing?
And I said, I'm watching Glee because people still watched Glee back then.
And he said, can I come over?
Like what?
Like this wasn't like a planned date or anything.
It's like just wants to hang out.
So I said, sure.
Immediately like threw everything in the closets, under the bed, whatever.
He just kind of came over and we watched Glee.
And not only did we just watch Glee, it was an episode that was like one of those very special episodes.
And he started tearing up.
I'm like, who is this guy?
Not long into their courtship, Chris tells Alex about his bipolar 2 diagnosis.
And maybe because Alex is a doctor, he seems understanding.
One of the things that endeared Alex to me was on our, it was like an early date.
He came over to my place and we were going to cook.
I was sitting in the living room.
He's facing the cabinets.
He's cutting something.
And I said, I should probably tell you something before we have more dates.
I said, I'm bipolar.
And then he was just quiet for five minutes.
And I thought, well, you know, this is the litmus test.
And he turned around and said, that's fine.
He's like, like Catherine Zeta-Jones?
That would have been amazing.
Alex moves in with Chris after about a year.
Things are serious and blissful.
But Chris has been coupled for most of his adult life.
He knows on some level that he hasn't had much time to explore himself on his own.
To be clear, from the ages of 20 to 41, he'd only been single for about a year altogether, and basically only a few months at a time.
So it's kind of perfect that, as Chris and Alex talk about getting engaged, Chris is offered the opportunity to to be the Boston Globe's travel writer.
The editors at the time thought Chris would be great for this because he's a really funny writer.
And as a reader, you kind of feel like no matter what he's writing about, you're along for the ride.
Chris's first solo trip as a travel writer takes him to Chicago.
I just researched and I thought I'm going to do a story about Chicago neighborhoods that get overlooked.
So I had, you know, a pretty long list of places I wanted to see and then realized that One night I was having dinner at a bar, like sitting at the bar, and someone started talking to me because it's Chicago and not Boston.
So someone started talking to me, it was sitting at the bar and we had this great conversation.
I started asking him like, what are your favorite restaurants?
I took out my notebook and I started writing things down and then realized from there that it's helpful to talk to people when you travel alone, not just as a travel writer.
And then from there, I never necessarily felt alone when I traveled, even though technically I was alone, but I had the option of reaching out to strangers if I didn't want to feel so lonely.
What came after Chicago?
There's one that I remember very specifically, which was St.
Vincent.
And it's kind of the honeymoon capital.
It's like where everyone who gets married goes for their honeymoon.
And I didn't really know this at the time.
And I went to a hotel there and it was beautiful and it was very much like St.
Bart's revisited.
I kind of had a little PTSD where all of these couples were there and there I am alone at a table.
There's not even a cat this time.
It's just me.
However, now I have this new armor of I'm a reporter, so I can talk to people and I'm not going to feel quite so alone.
This is a big moment for Chris.
He starts to see that he's okay by himself, that he can grow and experience things and be a man of the world.
Relationship or no relationship.
There is still something about traveling alone where you don't have someone to fall back on.
You know, when you travel with your spouse, your friends, your brain can take a break.
Whereas when you travel by yourself, your brain can't take a break.
You always have to be sort of aware.
You always have to be I don't want to say cautious, but I would say cautious.
I might be making assumptions here, but just because you had an 18-year relationship and then a two-year relationship and then you meet Alex, it's interesting that all of a sudden there's this forced alone time, even though at this point you're in the context of a loving relationship, and all of this.
Being in these relationships and always being with someone, I had fallen into a pattern of always having someone to fall back on.
I think a lot of people would say they kind of discovered themselves when they were dating, they when they were single, whatever.
And I think it was solo travel where I had to do that because I did have, like this sort of string of relationships that were probably too close together.
But traveling by myself specifically gave me more space to explore what was inside my head.
The cool thing is, as Chris is traveling and growing as a person, it's only making his relationship stronger.
Chris and Alex get married in 2016 in Miami, where Alex's family lives.
It makes sense to Chris's friends that it feels like a destination wedding.
Alex was researching and then he found a place called the Old Spanish Monastery that had been taken apart stone by stone.
Now it's an Episcopalian monastery and they allow weddings like they.
You know they rented out for weddings.
So we got married at a monastery in Florida, which is perfect because Alex is Spanish and also even better.
There's lots of cats that live at the monastery.
So not only did we have guests, but we had cats crashing, which is always a good sign of a good wedding.
Yeah, I mean, I was pretty medicated for it, but it was beautiful.
I remember you having a good time.
Yeah, I did.
Yeah, it was like me, Benadryl, a little bit of wine.
They honeymoon in Australia.
Within a year of the wedding, Chris has taken 25 to 30 more trips.
Since then, he's learned how to be coupled well.
But through travel, he's learned how to be good on his own, too.
One experience seems to help the other.
If I'm in France, I'll tell him about the area of Provence that I was in and how the lavender was and all of that.
It's a different like.
It helps in terms of breaking up the status quo of a relationship, to travel and to have that, which sounds odd, but he's anchoring me back here and I'm bringing him out into the world with my experiences.
What are some of the most beautiful things you've seen on your own?
I think there would have been a time where I would have been quite maudlin to sit and watch a beautiful sunset by myself.
And that is definitely not the case anymore.
When I was in Hong Kong and saw this amazing sunset.
It sounds so pretentious to take places off because it is, and I'm pretentious.
I'm actually not.
But some of the nature that I've had a chance to see is just breathtaking.
When I was in Kyoto, in Japan, just walking through this forest of bamboo trees that were so, so tall and like being alone there and admiring them.
They're just like these great moments to have.
I'm also a big city person.
So I love kind of sitting and observing like Montreal is probably my favorite city.
And I love going there and sitting outside and Because everyone there goes outside all summer long.
I'm also, I'm a huge fan of Iceland.
During the pandemic, when we could first travel, Iceland was the first country that opened its borders.
And so I immediately went to Iceland and there was a volcano that had started erupting.
So at two in the morning I went to the volcano and climbed the volcano because it was still sunny, because it was summer and the sun was eye level the whole time.
And it was stunning.
Absolutely stunning.
There are complications that come with lots of travel, of course.
During his 10 years on the job, life has changed.
When Chris met Alex, Alex was working all the time.
Alex still works a lot, but he's now chief of internal medicine at a medical practice.
He does have more nights at home.
Also, in the beginning, Chris's editors figured that most of his trips would be domestic.
But then they realized that readers, including myself, love when Chris goes to the far ends of the earth, because then it can sort of feel like we went there too.
That means a lot of time away from Alex, though.
He will kill me for saying this, but I'm going to say it.
As the trip gets closer, he'll say to me, I can't believe you're going to leave us.
I can't believe you're going to leave us.
Meaning, he and our cat, Mrs. Davenport.
And then he'll tell me when I'm away that he's a mess when I'm away.
Now, I think part of this is dramatic.
I think part of it is having fun guilting me.
And I think part of it is true.
One out of every eight or nine trips he comes with.
And it's challenging because we have very different styles of travel.
I'm more of a land at a destination.
I sort of have the basics planned and then I just kind of like to have an adventure.
Alex has Rick Steve's guide glued into his hand and wants to go to every church that's in the guide.
Whereas I want to go to every record store when I'm not, you know, doing what I need to do for the story.
I know that not everyone can go to Hong Kong and St.
Vincent and Kyoto to find themselves because it is very expensive.
Being Julia Roberts in Eat, Pray, Love is not an easy thing to pull off.
And while I love Under the Tuscan Sun, the idea of restarting one's life in Tuscany is maybe not practical for most people.
But Chris says it's possible to have these experiences on the cheap.
It's all about seeing new things with only yourself as a guide.
It's about exploring anything beyond your comfort zone so you're better when you're in it.
One thing I would recommend for people who are terrified of going to dinner by themselves or going to the movies by themselves is just do it.
Just having a day where you're by yourself and you're alone with your thoughts, you're seeing what's around you more, and then you're bringing that back home with you.
So not only are you sort of helping yourself, you're also kind of helping your relationship.
Since becoming an official travel writer, Chris has been back to St.
Barts multiple times.
I imagine it looks different to you now than it did that first time.
It does.
I'm trying to think how many years it was after that first mopey self-pity trip.
And I think the first time I went back was after a hurricane a few years ago, like reporting on the recovery of the Caribbean.
And of course, St.
Bart's, you know, but I went back to the place where I stayed because they were rebuilding.
This sounds so corny.
But in a way, when I saw like they were rebuilding, I thought oh, that's interesting, because that's I kind of did that like emotionally, like from this place.
And I was worried going there that it would bring back these memories.
It took a long time for me to get over being with Kyle.
And I was afraid that anything would sort of like tip that.
And when I was there, that's not what came to mind.
What came to mind was, is Louis Vuitton still open?
And what's the quickest way to get to the beach?
Thank you, Chris, for sharing everything.
It's lovely to see you because I always love talking to you.
I love you.
Love Letters is a production of the Boston Globe and PRX.
Today's episode was produced by Scott Hellman.
Ned Porter does our audio mixing, sound design and mastering.
Maddie Mortel does our audience engagement.
Special thanks to Linda Henry.
Our music is from APM.
Remember, Love Letters is also an advice column.
Send your questions about dating, relationships, friendships and more to loveletters at boston.com.
Find episode transcripts and more Love Letters content at loveletters.show.
Tonight, I'm going to Barcelona and I'm getting on a ship, Virgin Voyages.
I haven't tried the Virgin Cruise Line yet.
I've heard it's the party ship.
It has a tattoo parlor on board.
Wow.
I mean, what could possibly go wrong?
I'm Meredith Goldstein.
Thanks for listening.
J'en perds mes doigts Thank you.
