Oops I… Caught a flight (and maybe some feelings too)

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caught a flight

I gasped for air as the cold water pierced my bones.

Shivers ran through me, shaking my body as a monumental smile broke out across my face.

I floated in the icy adrenaline of the Tara River. The burly mountain man with the piercing eyes and the soul of a wolf looked me in the eyes and said, “Jump in.” You obey a man like that.

I was in Bosnia—or was it Montenegro? On the border of both, I guess.

We had just spent a few days in Kotor, Montenegro. We spent them lazily, in a never-ending cycle of sea, sun, and spreads. I was mesmerized by this place. The Jurassic-like mountains towered over us in every direction. We felt small in this little Balkan bay.

On our first night, we sat down over dinner—tan and tipsy—and made a bingo card for our girls’ trip: dance with a stranger. Schmooze a grandpa. Get free drinks. Get injured. Write a poem.

Our list of twenty-five bingo items became the blueprint for the trip.

After getting our fill of Kotor, we made our way to the most remote location I’ve ever been to: the deep forest on the border of Montenegro and Bosnia.

The world quieted in a way that removed every distraction during that ride. Nothing else existed but the thoughts I’d ignored, the feelings I wished would disappear. One girl was fast asleep, the other was making small talk with our driver, the hum of the engine carrying us higher into the mountains.

The landscape blurred as tears began to roll down my face. The emerald greens of the mountains and cerulean blue of the sea all swirled together like a Monet painting—blurred and dripping and beautiful in their nothingness.

I went through a breakup recently—or maybe I’m still going through a breakup. I’m not sure exactly when you’re no longer allowed to be heartbroken. When it officially becomes pathetic to miss someone. When it’s no longer normal to still think about them.

It’s especially embarrassing to still be hung up on a guy when the relationship was short. As if the relationship’s length should determine the depth. As if the distance should’ve kept me from falling in love with him, from letting myself imagine a future together. God knows it did for him.

I was fine—I hadn’t cried in weeks before the trip.

But as we giggled over candlelit dinners and walked the Old Town and compared tan lines and squealed on a boat and biked along the coast and dove into the ocean and breathed in the forest, I couldn’t help but think:

This could’ve been us.

A trace of melancholy followed me—I banished it quickly to the back of my mind.

We settled into the mountains—suddenly out of the bay and into the woods. A little cabin site welcomed us with shots of rakija, a local fruit brandy that temporarily blinded us. We spent the evening making friends, playing games, warming ourselves by the fire, and tending to the injury I had accidentally manifested.

Our mountain man guided us through the rapids of the Tara River the next morning, encouraging us to pause between thrashes to look up at the towering mountains and down through the crystal clear water. I exhaled for the first time in a long time.

The rest of the trip was spent consuming copious amounts of burek, ćevapi, and palačinke against increasingly spectacular backdrops—from a wooded cabin overlooking a river, to a Sarajevo hole-in-the-wall diner, to a bridge connecting both sides of Mostar’s Old Town, with no itinerary, no sleep, and somehow everything figured out.

In the end, we got twenty-three out of twenty-five bingo items. We schmoozed, we drank, we flirted, we swam, we danced, we laughed, we (sorry girl) broke bones—exactly what a girls’ trip is for.

I’m back home now, and I’m okay—still banishing that quiet melancholy, that heartbreak, to the back of my mind—but now with fresh tan lines.

Some advice?

If you’re going to be heartbroken, be heartbroken on vacation.

There’s nothing like crying with a view.

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Bonus Bingo Poem: I wrote this somewhere between airports and heartbreak. A poem written by a girl in her feelings. It felt true then.

I’m sitting at an airport café

we’ve been broken up for a month now
and I haven’t cried in weeks
you’re muted or archived on everything
and somehow you’re still the one I seek

we’ve been broken up for a month now
and I’m doing well
I’m at a beach with my girls
from the club to the party to the hotel

and you’d never be able to tell

that we’ve been broken up for a month now
just a few weeks since that fight
where you pulled back for the last time
where I tried not to cry with all my might

we’ve been broken up for a month now
and I thought I was okay
but as I walk the cobblestone streets
I can’t help but say:

we’ve been broken up for a month now
and I’m still mad at you
this could have been us on this trip:

you and me
me and you

but you fucked up so badly
to add to everything else
not only did you not choose me
you also screwed over yourself

we’ve been broken up for a month now
I’ve got no tears left to give
there’s someone else in the picture
and I’m doing my best to just live

we’ve been broken up for a month now
I’m outmatched—you win
you never really chose me
guess I wasn’t worth it in the end

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