Episode 1-February 2024: Traveling Through Life’s Changes: A Periodontist’s Tale of Wanderlust and Work -

Episode 1: February 2024-Traveling Through Life

For as long as I can remember, I’ve longed for travel. Or, at least, the idea of travel, when the reality of it was neither under my control nor within my capabilities. The world is so vast, and ways of life so varying. Even as a child I knew I wanted to see and experience different parts of the world, as much as possible, first hand. I am, at heart, a nomad. The fact that I spent roughly thirty years of my life in school, and the balance of it building a periodontics practice, has limited my “nomadic” movement. But it hasn’t quelled my desire for movement, even if only temporary.

In college, when the idea of travel began to merge with the reality of it, I started putting together lists of the countries I wanted to visit, and the things I wanted to see. The list was long, and as I’ve made efforts to work through it, it has gotten longer rather than shorter. Back when I was in dental school and then doing my Periodontics residency, I had winter breaks, and spring breaks, and long breaks between semesters. I was (at times) flush with free time… though with minimal income, I had to figure out ways to take advantage of the time I had in abundance. Most often, it meant my husband and I would find a cheap flight, load up our backpacks, and spend as much time as we could somewhere else. My favorite memories were the long trips, usually taken after graduating from one school, and waiting for the next one to begin. Those often meant a month or more bouncing from hostel to pension to hostel somewhere in Europe. And then bouncing from pension to cheap hotel to pension when, as my husband would tell you, we aged out of hostels; or, as I would tell you, I aged out of listening to other people snore and wondering which of my “roommates” was going to try to abscond with my debit card. We would spend days, and weeks, walking around cities and small towns of all types, navigating back roads, meeting people, going to museums, eating street food and creating dinner picnics of bakery treats and grocery store wine. Trying to immerse ourselves in the culture, rather than simply being spectators of it. Getting to know much more than the few heavily touristed cities everyone hears about (though, admittedly, spending a lot of time in those as well).

I decided to start a travel blog because, as my career and family have expanded, my ability to travel has changed significantly. What I once loved isn’t possible for me right now. And, what once wasn’t possible now is, though I can’t figure out whether or not I love it. And I can’t be the only one.

Woman in a yellow tank and camo skirt standing in Amorgos Greece

Bread, wine, and cheese from Astorga spain picnic

Our ability to take extensive, immersive trips ended the minute I decided to open my Periodontics practice, Texas Dental Specialists, in 2010. I opened my doors with zero patients, and devoted every spare moment of my time and energy to building my practice. I LOVE what I do, and I’m very good at it. So while occasionally frustrating and time consuming, the marketing part of practice building wasn’t difficult. Texas Dental Specialists grew faster than I expected it to, as I met incredibly talented doctors to collaborate with, and wonderful patients to offer my skills to. But as the practice continued to grow, my freedoms continued to shrink. My husband has the luxury of being able to do his job from virtually anywhere that he can use his phone or log into a laptop. I can’t do my job unless I am physically in my practice space, talking to patients or sitting (sometimes standing) next to the dental chair. And any time I’m not physically there, I can’t help my patients address their urgent needs.

Then, I had twin sons. And any sense I had of stress was exacerbated by doing everything I had previously been doing, but adding infants to the equation.

Woman in a black dress and white pants standing in front of pyramids of cairo Egypt

man in a blue shirt and gray shorts with woman in a white t shirt and orange shorts sitting in granada spain

It became painfully clear at this point that one of those things I truly love, travel, was going to have to mean and become something very different than it had always been. Gone were the weeks of trying to meld into cultures, learn languages, feel the essence of the towns, regions, and countries we were traversing. Gone were the multitude of cheap and “home-y” meals, with their minor and major variations from locality to locality and region to region. Gone were the sometimes amazing, sometimes downright frightening, overnights in randomly wandered-into habitations. Gone were the laissez faire vacation plans, that once allowed us to leave the towns and villages that bored us, and to linger in the ones that inspired us. Travel life was going to become short trips and quick experiences; bullet points that hopefully I could go back to fill in the details of some day, whenever it is that life actually does in fact slow down. I’d have to be a tourist… I guess.

I would also need to navigate how, and when, to travel with my children, and/or with friends, rather than just with my husband. On the plus side, after years of practice building I had the financial wherewithal to make multiple trips. As well as to never have to stay in a pension again (though my husband would still prefer to, which I guess is another thing to navigate).

Woman in a back coat and colorful scarf in ghent belgum at a cafe in front of the canal

Woman in a white sweater sitting with a man in a green t shirt in Salzburg Austria

I’ve been trying to figure all of this out for over a decade, and I still haven’t. So, I’m going to start writing it down. Where I went, what I did, and how it all went; the good, the bad, and the ugly. Maybe I’ll (finally) learn something when I put it on paper. And, maybe my patients and the doctors I work with (who are undoubtedly as busy as I am, with similar career stresses, and/or family obligations and time constraints) can learn something from my successes and from my failures and mistakes. Or, at the very least, maybe we can laugh at them, the next time I see them on or around the dental chair.