Today, I am writing mainly because I need to write for myself. While I pulled the following article from my book manuscript that I never finished (started maybe 8 years ago), it is more relevant now than ever, and is likely the reason that it has come across my eyes at this very moment.

_____

The hardest things often seem to be the most necessary things to do. 

And once you move through them, boy does it ever also feel like an achievement once you manage all of the hurdles to get there. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it, and you probably wouldn’t appreciate it quite the same way then either. Doing something that is challenging can be very fulfilling, with freedom and flexibility as a bonus on the other side, depending on what it is that you’re attempting to do. Not limiting yourself due to certain beliefs that society has on you, or your own pre-conceived narratives that you have on yourself can also be really freeing.

As mentioned before (Trust Yourself), it took me 3 years to make the jump out of something that was no longer serving me well in my career, and another 1.5 years to figure out what I really wanted to “do” next. This isn’t a short or simple process by any means, and it’s made even harder with social stigmas, traditions, and expectations, as well as self-doubt.

Expectations

Over the last 8 or so years, I’ve heard many different statements about the expectations around a female who’s in her 30s traveling and not “settled” in one place, with a relationship, a guy, a corporate job, and babies. The fact that the lifestyle is “just a stage” and isn’t something that runs deeper through my blood as an ongoing lifestyle, that may take on different phases or forms over the years, but it’s something that I would always want to be able to choose.

When I first started on the road in 2010, the “location independent” lifestyle didn’t really even have a name yet. People just did it, and didn’t know what to call it. I was a nomad until new terms came up and were defined around this type of lifestyle.

An example of the social expectations and stigmas can be shown via a friend of mine who I had met up with while living in NYC for a month for the first time. He came for a visit with family and we went out for drinks in a great East Village bar that my girlfriend and roommate there frequented, as he proceeded to tell me that he didn’t realize that I even actually worked while on my many travels, and figured I just had money coming from somewhere – it appeared that my life was all fun and games and one forever-vacation.

That’s what I really have a difficult time hearing the most. That people don’t understand how hard I work and that I’m constantly working while on the road. How I was the one that had to make sure this happened FOR me, not TO me, and that I prioritized a lot of things and pushed really hard to get to where I am. This didn’t fall in my lap, but was a result of a combination of things that of course worked out, but I had to make many conscious choices, prioritize things, and take steps to design and create this life. 

I’ve always been my own backstop, since I was very young, and didn’t have anyone but myself to fall back on. I built up to having a line of credit that I had worked to get, after buying my first condo in Vancouver at the age of 25 after a break-up, so that I could move out on my own and have independence and own something that I had earned for myself. A life, a world, a place to be. No more leaning on anyone else (even though I didn’t really do that anyway). Perhaps that’s why it’s sometimes hard to be in relationships, as I am strong and independent and appear like I don’t need any help, while a lot of guys have the tendency to want to take care of the women in their lives (and I would actually like that more instead of feeling like I can’t stop and just let it happen for me sometimes). It’s hard work.

Rebelling against the norm

Travel insurance, banking needs, tools, how to deal with taxes and being an expat even though you’re not really and need to belong to a specific country but are always just on the move from place to place. I’m a global citizen, and my heart doesn’t feel like it belongs to or needs to be in a single place.

Living out of a suitcase

Having only 3 boxes to my name and selling everything off slowly over 4 years, as you realized more and more that it didn’t matter. Left minor items in my brother’s storage room that I couldn’t get rid of, but how little is it that someone really needs to be content? It’s so freeing, knowing that you can go anywhere, be whatever you want, do whatever you’d like, without having material objects tying you down. Of course, there are the people around the world that you miss, but those strong bonds and relationships will last, while the objects don’t matter.

Business: Try doing something that everyone else thinks is silly. That’s why if you pursue it, you’ll be more likely to get it. If everyone decided to venture out to the extreme, then it would be a lot less likely that it would make such an impact if it happened.

At the time, working remotely was not as commonplace as it’s become today, and it was difficult to find services and infrastructure to support the lifestyle, and it was a matter of trying and testing, and actually just figuring everything out as I went. Today it is a much more accepted lifestyle (location independence), and more and more people, especially younger generations, seem to be tending towards it. It now seems a lot more feasible and generally accepted.

Love / Relationships: Not what you expect is sometimes what you have to be okay with? Different than the expected?

Starting the hard way

Was a challenge from the beginning – accessibility, working remotely, dealing with clients remotely and in different timezones. This just made the “normal” things more challenging as a baseline, which made all other obstacles seem that much smaller, more easy to overcome. If you start from everything being really hard as the norm, then in comparison, the rest will appear easy.

Didn’t start first really in Vancouver, except for maybe 3 months. Then hit the road again, gave that expectation up front not to expect me to be here, meet in person, etc. Setup my bank accounts, mail, everything to work in a way that functioned while I was traveling, so that when I came home, it wasn’t even a blip on my radar. 

What was difficult and how I overcame those difficulties. How that has shifted over time from a more stable / one-place lifestyle, but still allows for freedom / flexibility to live both ways, and then back again.

Human relationships

I’m currently working through a break-up.

We’ve been together for almost 5 years, and have lived together for the last 4. I’ve been weighing my choices heavily on this, as I am now 38 years old, and at a point in my child-bearing years where I have to shit or get off the pot soon. To ensure I’ve got more time to make decisions, I’m also in the process of going to a fertility clinic to get a consult and find out if a good option will be to freeze my eggs in case I do find someone I want to have children with in future, and will still then have the chance and a back-up plan if we so choose at that point in time.

I know that relationships will always be work – what has helped me come to this decision after so many years of contemplating what to do (because he’s a great, kind, supportive, smart man) – I have found that I’ve spent more of my time struggling than feeling like the relationship is the right one for me. When there are more negatives than positives on the whole, all it does is drain me of energy and hold me back from living my fullest life. Sure, there are good times, and I know that we love each other SO much more than I’ve ever loved anyone else in this type of relationship, and I do question whether I’m doing the right thing because this could be the wrong decision, the wrong direction – at the same time, if it’s meant to happen, I feel that it will. I know that I have really high expectations in life and in other people, but at the same time, that doesn’t mean I should lower them. I don’t want to live my life with regret later on, thinking what could’ve been, how happy and fulfilled and in love I could’ve been, and how much more I could have done to serve others and have an impact on the world.

Benefits

Freedom and flexibility

Could literally choose anything once I knew what was possible and that I could do it. I had already achieved so much by taking a jump into something that wasn’t status quo so if I could do that, why couldn’t I do everything else out there?

What this has meant for me

I’ve had the best years of my life and felt the most freedom and the most like myself since I started living this way, on my own terms. I was able to come out the other side of it, through a long ongoing process of change and desire to live this lifestyle, learning so much as I’ve gone through it and wouldn’t trade any of it no matter what. It was amazing to do what I wanted, when I wanted, where I wanted – exploring the world, meeting new people, and watching amazing sunsets along the way. The next step for me will be seeing how I can combine this lifestyle while in a relationship.