All you ever read or hear are those amazing stories where people, either solo, with fiends or as a couple traveled the world which usually changed their lives completely. They met a ton of inspiring people and they changed as a person.
I’m not arguing with any of these statements, traveling did change my life, it changed me, but not in the way I thought it would, or not yet..
Maybe to start with, a little bit about myself. I’m 25 years old, when I was 18 I started working as a travel guide in France, studying and partying in between. When I was 21 I worked as part of an animation team in Turkey, where I met the love of my life who’s now my husband. We lived together for 3 years in Belgium where I worked for Deloitte, a hugely successful consultancy firm.
In the last year before we left to travel full time however, my hubby fell out due to several back injuries, surgeries and even the implantation of a spinal cord stimulator. Suddenly I was the main provider for my ‘family’. I’m not fully sure whether this is relevant but I’m on a discovery myself to find out what made me change. It sounds so stupid and selfish it seems but I feel like this may have made me proud on some parts, I was helping us out, providing for our needs, me.
Out of this info you could conclude I was a confident, extroverted and fearless individual who enjoyed going out with friends, proud of her job and its advantages (private concerts, vip festivals, awesome corporate events etc.), never saying no to evenings inspired by rosé wine.
Ever since we left off towards our newest adventure something has changed. Don’t get me wrong here, I absolutely LOVE traveling, spending all this precious time with my husband and exploring so many things we’d never seen before. I adore the freedom we feel every day when we decide what to make of it over our morning coffee.
But I’ve lost my pride, I’m not starting conversations with whoever (I am Highly Sensitive so that might be a bit related), I’m worrying a lot; about the future, about our finances, our dreams,.. I know I could start working somewhere but that’s scaring the sh*t out of me; going to strangers, promoting myself, what if the expectations are sky high? What if nobody wants me? And to be honest I am doing that but it’s extremely hard, I’ve done heaps of applications (more than 50 already) and until now I only had one interview with a recruitment agency and 1 trial in a store. I’m putting all my efforts into this but I feel nothing is coming back.
On the other hand I do believe that that’s one of the aspects or maybe the main one, that made me insecure; the feeling that I’m not providing my family anymore. I’m not earning any money, if I could, I could guarantee a lifestyle with no or less worries. I could ask my husband out for steak night, because somehow that’s what we millennials are used to and as I experience it, it’s rather hard to give up. I’m talking about the ‘living life to the fullest’ lifestyle, going for another cocktail, trying that new restaurant or buying those shoes that everybody has. When I was a kid, we used to eat out maybe once a month or less? For me it was something crazy luxurious, but when I got older and earned my own money it became more of a once- or twice a-week-thing and frankly why not? I loved it! + I think it made me feel proud somehow, not having to look at all the prices on the menu first but just eating & drinking what I felt like! If that isn’t pure luxury huh?
Anyway I realized that being a Digital Nomad is my eventual goal & dream, to have a lot of freedom in my own organization and workplace but to still be able to earn an income to fund our traveling dreams. I’m just lacking the self-confidence I guess to put myself out there and prove that I am good enough. I am playing with an idea of starting my freelance career as a Virtual Assistant, basically doing the admin support I did in my office job, but then with the location freedom I need.