Have you ever woken up one day and realized that the life you were living was not the life you envisioned for yourself? It’s not that you were discontent with the life that you were living, but tired of the mundane and expected. So much so that you decided to get rid of 85% of the things you own and hit the road with your vehicle, your belongings in it and a desire for change?
Yeah me either, lol.
I am a person that thrives in comfortability. The routine that you fall into when you find the perfect apartment and layout for your new space. The chores that come with just living day to day. The same restaurants and coffee shops that you have experienced too many times to count.
Cincinnati was a great home. It was the perfect landing spot after a failed attempt in medical school. Offering a fresh start, new people, new experiences and best of all, the opportunity to be whoever and whatever I wanted to be.
My four years in Cincinnati were good to me. They lead me to the career field and work opportunities that I am still exploring and enjoying to this day. An incredible community that I built to be my family away from my own. A place that accepted me at one of the lowest points of my life, nurtured me and helped me grow into the woman I thought I had lost along the way.
For as much as I enjoyed the life that I was living in Cincinnati, I knew that it wasn’t my forever place. It wasn’t a place I wanted to buy a home nor plant roots. It wasn’t a place that felt like home, but I didn’t know where to go that would feel like that.
Change is scary and is certainly not something that I deal well with. However, it was a skill that I both wanted and needed to learn. After working to build my confidence and self-esteem, what better way to put my newly learned skills to use than diving head first into what most call: immersion therapy. Remembering that feeling of a past wiped clean and the opportunity to make life whatever you want provided me with all of the fuel needed to leave Cincinnati.
Leaving this time would be different however, this time I wasn’t running away from anything except the comfort of a convenient lifestyle.
I can remember talking about traveling, and the idea seemed so far-fetched to me. There was absolutely no way that I could easily relocate every few months. Start over in a new community, knowing no one, being in an unfamiliar area and thrive??
Here I am. Ten months into my traveling journey and I am doing better than ever. In quite literally every aspect of my life.
It’s hard for me to step back and think of what I am doing as anything other than “life” because to me at this time, that is exactly what it is. I have to pinch myself because what I am doing, is no small feat and there are not a lot of people that would be brave enough to even give thought to what I am doing. Exploring, experiencing, living…all while doing it alone.
This is what it feels like to march to the beat of your own drum. To feed your curiosities and put your most authentic foot forward. This is what it feels like to live.
I can promise you, not every day is social media worthy. I cry often. I miss my family and friends. I live out of a suitcase and Rubbermaid bins. I sleep in a strange bed. I work full time, I have to grocery shop and clean the house just as I would before. When I do it now though, I am doing it from a place of my choosing and in my free time, I can explore the places I am lucky enough to call ‘home’. Even if it is only temporary.
It is my hope to provide you with a window into my life. The real and true experiences that I have in this chapter of life. A firsthand account as to what life can look like when you reinvent yourself every eight weeks.
Knowing just how liberating it can be to start with a clean slait.