2. Anger

Everyone, and I mean everyone, has a breaking point. Albeit hard to see from social media, relationships are not always roses and selfies, date nights, and rainbows. Anyone whose ever been in one, knows this. And I don't just mean a romantic relationships either. Anyone whose ever been close to another person knows connection is both vital and trying. As a society we make the daily, collective decision to actively ignore the worst parts of life online, keeping up the façade that everything in our lives and within ourselves is 100% okay, even great, even perfect, even while we know this to be a lie. Interestingly, we still all believe the rose-tinted, or should I say filtered, lives of everyone else online, taking their walls, posts, and photos for largely face-value.

So full disclosure, here's what you didn't see on social media behind our plans to travel around the world: Anger, namely, frustration.

It was a motive, means, and mold. There was a lot about staying in the states that left us, well, angry. Stresses pushed us to the edge the last couple years. Stress set back my graduation date at least a school year for my Master's Degree; I have about a class and a paper left which had to be postponed. 12-14 hour days, long evenings, weekends spent working is the American way. Commutes, workload, and time apart made us think, "Why are we living this way? Working only to get money that we don't have time or energy to spend, except on take-out." The classic American way of work-life balance is "handle the stress, the hours, the load or get another job." Even the best of workplaces offering work-life balance still expect you to answer your emails, text messages, phone calls morning, noon, and night. If you're an exceptional worker, you work weekends, pick up slack and never let 'em see you sweat.

Cameron and I love to work. We truly do! We love to meet and surpass expectations. We love to help people, to demonstrate our skills, to advance the company or the classroom. But we often gave away more of ourselves than we bargained for, as most hard-working Americans do. We were ready for a change of pace, time to enjoy our youth while we have it, and space to simply be without being 'on-call' even after hours. So anger was a motive to leave.

But it was also a means. Moving is stressful and it's easy to get angry under pressure; it's just as easy to turn on each other. I had coordinated and scheduled a day-by-day action plan three months out, which changed as regularly as our plans shifted-- constantly. We agonized over difficult decision after difficult decision. We scheduled out the to-dos with plenty of buffer room, but somehow, we were always stuck needing to do more, pay more, plan more. Honestly, we wondered if we were ever going to be done. We were Sisyphus and throwing hissy-fits. We spent almost every day of summer working, packing, calling, canceling, scheduling, arguing, forgiving, and getting up the next day to do to the same. The days were hot, long, and exhausting. Days we needed a break or rest left me irritated, "But there's so much still left to do!" Days we worked all day left us with nothing, "We need a break. Our feet and hands, legs, and heads hurt." It was aggravating when we finally got on the road, still with things left to do, still items to pay for. We tried our best not to take out on each other what we felt about the situations.

Finally, anger was a mold, a habit easy to slip into. Heat, unclear directions, unfair expectations and loud noises, that's what gets me crankier faster than almost anything else. I know when it's hot I'm 5x more likely to snap at anyone and anything. Cameron's anger mold is when things go longer than expected, he gets interrupted, he hasn't eaten (you won't like him when he's hangry), or when there are sudden requirements to do more and more things while he's already focused on the task at-hand. Moving includes all of our anger molds, like the indents in our tennis shoes after a long day, we fit right into old habits without thinking twice.

What you didn't see on social media was the budgeting, adult Tetris of our storage unit, and racing time and energy to get the jobs done. You didn't see us sleeping on the floor of our apartment the day before we left, surrounded still by things that needed to either be denoted, packed or trashed. You didn't see us at the airports, paying for "overweight" luggage, though we had packed it precisely, spending hours shedding pound after pound, taking less than essentials, crying through sacrifices, weighing it before we left or when we spent the night in JFK airport because our flight was delayed 5 hours and our meal vouchers were next to useless since all restaurants were closed or closing. There was anger when we made bad decisions and wasted money or blamed each other for honest mistakes. You didn't see the anger we had over what we found was most deserving to go into our small storage unit and what was to be given away or the wearisome hours we spent reminding each other that things are worthless compared to each other, despite our anger.

Anger taught me about knowing my limits and confessing them. Cameron likes to say there is no passive in my aggression and it's true. I've never been someone who silently festers in anger. When I'm upset, I say so, sometimes with tact and grace, but usually I'm curt, abrupt, or harsh. Anger is not a bad emotion though and it's fair to feel angry and frustrated when things don't go the way we planned. But how we express our anger really matters. I teach my students about tone in class-- it's not just what you say, but how you say it that matters. When things are frustrating, I've learned to be direct and assertive. I'm clear about what I feel and why. But I always need to work on how I present that information and I fear it will be a lifelong battle. "Cam." I'll say, "I'm really getting very upset. This is what is making me angry." Sometimes, Cameron will say, "What can I do to help?" and I'll reply, "Honestly, I don't know. But I'm upset." He doesn't hold it against me that I don't know how to fix the problem or even that I don't totally know how I feel or why sometimes. But he lets me just speak to the fact that its there and that gives it less control over me. I realize not everyone has a Cameron who just lets them speak their truth. In fact. Cameron often doesn't have one either, but that doesn't change how we should respond in anger. Sometimes, it means walking away, setting up healthy boundaries, or giving yourself time to process.

Cameron and I both know our limits and can identify what are easy anger molds for each other. I can tell when Cameron is getting to a boiling point when he's too quiet for too long-- I know he's trying to calm himself down and I know to give him space to do that. Cameron knows that he should deliver me to the nearest air-conditioned room and we both know when we need to take a break, get some food and gain some perspective. Cameron knows better than I when we need a collective break (sometimes I just bypass the signs of getting too angry because I want to attack the problem head-on: a fool's errand).

Anger teaches us that life is hard and transparency is necessary. I can't pretend that I'm okay when I'm not. It helps nobody. Cameron can't pretend that he doesn't have limits too; everybody, and I mean everybody, has a breaking point. I would never want to wound Cameron with my words or actions over a temporary problem; almost all problems, in my estimation, are temporary. Those that are not, are not worth fighting over to point of hurting someone in an irreparable way.

It takes 5 compliments to undo one harsh criticism. I know not only because I learned educational psychology, but also because it makes sense. Of all the kind things people have said to me or about me, I only remember the words that hurt years later. It's really very important in marriage and in life not to do or say something in anger that will wound someone potentially for a lifetime. It's easy to do-- that's the danger of those 'molds.'

Because of anger, we know our limits, how to speak our truths, and take care of ourselves and each other. So we got new jobs, a new life, at a great cost to us, and started anew. Moving around the world isn't all roses and selfies, but by paying attention to what makes us angry, we discovered what we truly value, in things, ourselves, and each other, so that when the world is rainbows and date nights, we can fully enjoy them. And I'll tell you what, nothing is quite as satisfying as overcoming an obstacle you never thought you could in a way you can be proud of!