While it may not be the social norm for grown-ups to lug around teddy bears, research tells us that adults regularly become attached to inanimate objects in a manner similar to a child's grip on a security blanket. But what about those of us who never felt a particular sentimental attachment to an object even as a child? Where does that leave us? I suppose it would only make sense then that those of us who never felt any deep emotional attachment to a childhood item would similarly find themselves wandering around adulthood similarly emotionally uninvolved with anything in their grown up reality.In one random study on attachment that I came across through searching the web, researchers asked individuals to cut up photographs of a cherished item. While the participants cut, the researchers recorded their galvanic skin response, a measure of tiny changes in sweat production on the skin. The more sweat, the more agitated the person. The results showed that participants had a significant stress response to cutting up pictures of their beloved item compared with cutting up a picture of a valuable or neutral item. Participants even became distressed when researchers had them cut up a picture of their cherished item that was blurred past recognition. In another study carried out, results revealed that people who held onto a mug for 30 seconds before bidding for it in an auction offered an average of 83 cents more for it than people who held the mug for 10 seconds. Given what we know, why is it that I have never felt particularly attached to any given object which has come my way in the last 28 years? Why is it that my entire life, I have been fixated on minimizing my belongings, purging anything without a logical use, and continuously afflicted with the unremitting need to be able to assemble my entire life into a shoe box?
There`s no denying my fear of commitment or attachment when it comes to tangible items. Bloody oath, would you believe that I burst into a bout of howling hysterics when the car salesman handed me the keys to my very first set of wheels, Murkle. All I could envision were a set of ball and chains across my ankles. I spent the better part of an hour sitting in his office begging him to take me up on my offer to have him buy the car back from me, tears streaming down my face all the while. I will never forget his final irritated sounding words to me, "If this is how you react to buying a car, how on earth are you ever going to cope with your first home purchase?" And so it would appear that I would be the perfect poster girl for any type of advertisement for the "anti-attachment" theory phenomenon. Being tied down to tangible items make my skin crawl and my heart begin to race in panic. In August 2011, I bought my first large piece of furniture, a basic metal Wal-mart futon with a price tag attached to it of $99. This was HUGE for me. Exactly 3 months later, I found myself logging into my kijiji account offering it up for sale. When I moved into a house with some girlfriends from university, I was appauled when I peered into one of their bedrooms and laid eyes on a floor to ceiling length bookshelf revealing every textbook which undoubtedly carried her through 17 years of schooling. I say this because it would be a real chuckle to get ahold of old university security cameras dating back to the opening hours of the yearend "Sell your book back to us sale."
With exams still days away, a determined university ripe Marcella would have been seen running through the halls with an armload of textbooks, anxiously awaiting the doors to open so that she could unload the year`s worth of study materials. I`m not exactly proud to admit this, but my inability to attach or commit may similarly be applied to the environments whereby I find myself taking up residence. In going to renew my driver`s license a few months back, I found myself pulling out three different IDs, all still valid, and all with a different civic address. You would think that the longer that I would live in one place, that the more secure and happy I would feel in my surroundings. Yet, the opposite effect takes shape. The longer I find myself in one place, the more I fantasize about being somewhere else, with my days spent contemplating my next escape into the unknown. But what has caused this? What came first? Was it the chicken? Or was it the egg? Was it my three years of prior vagabonding that caused this inability to feel satisfied with where I am? Did travel spur adult ADHD in me?
“Does (long term) travel cause a fear of commitment OR is it an existing fear of commitment within certain people that then causes them to travel?”
When people sit around to discuss their adventure travels, they very rarely touch on the potential damage which any type of lengthy travel may inevitably cause. What if a lifestyle of living out of a bag, where everyday feels like a Saturday, the experience of ultimate freedom, and where a day without a cool new experience is seen as a "dull day" causes us to shirk commitment and the possibility of settling down into a proper 9-5 job? I mean in the real world that I have come to know in my Ontarian world these past three years, and as horrified as I was to witness it firsthand, people do the same thing, day in--- and day out.... for decades even. Living on the road, constantly meeting new and interesting people from all walks of life, our senses constantly being stimulated, new relationships and friendships ignited and extinguished before having a chance to flourish... When we finally settle, is something going to be missing?.... the high? the lack of ongoing stimuli? Can we face the stable (stagnant) social group and the same job for the next 10, 20, 30 years? Can we meet that one guy and find that they will be enough? If we can`t, then what? Is this what has happened to me this time again in my attempt to re-settle in Cornwall. Is it a prior life of travel adventure that has left me feeling as though my life here is unfulfilled?
Was it my personality that saw me emotionally unattached from my tangible environment in childhood which caused my ongoing struggle with commitment?... Or was it the fault of that nasty travel bug which nipped me in the rear a few years back?
This is what I want for my next birthday: I want it to be so that when I’m on the road, I am able to savour every moment, to live it and to love it. But when I settle, for however long, I want to feel satisfied, content and stimulated by that life as well. From a ME generationalist (me): I want to be able to have my cake, and eat it too!"
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