This post is the seventh, and final, post in a series that I am doing on preparing to move abroad. If you have been dreaming of long-term travel or moving abroad, this will be a great resource in your planning. I plan to cover the stages of planning and what you need to consider before taking a big trip like this as well as all the emotions leading up to it. I will be posting weekly. Hope you will join me on this journey before the journey!
This is the last post in this series on moving abroad to travel around the world for a year. If you missed the previous posts, start with the first post on why we decided to move abroad.
The Series on Moving Abroad for a Trip Around the World
- Moving Abroad Post #2: How we are getting ready for a trip around the world
- Moving Abroad Post #3: Why we started our trip in Bali, Indonesia
- Moving Abroad Post #4: Why we decided to extend our time in Southeast Asia
- Moving Abroad Post #5: Vaccines we received for a year of travel
- Moving Abroad Post #6: Plans to travel in Europe during a year of travel
This post was written on the plane from Denver to Seattle, the first leg of our trip, after saying goodbye to our friends and family for a year. It is raw and unfiltered, as promised, and not easy for me to share. Hope you enjoy my thoughts on departing for a trip around the world!
The End of An Era
Well that was a hectic month, if you can’t tell from the fact that I haven’t written anything since the previous post in March. I honestly don’t even have the energy right now to write about it but I also feel like I need to process this.
Moving has been so stressful. We just barely finished in time. I haven’t moved in a long time and I forgot how many things you accumulate. We had so much stuff, our 10’ by 10’ storage unit barely fit everything. There are so many things that we should have done that I have considered over the last few days but it is honestly painful to harp on them because there is no point. We should have packed more, faster, basically. We spent so much time over the last month trying to squeeze in quality time with everyone we love. It was so worth it, but in retrospect, we should have reserved a few weekend days to really get through things. We should have gotten rid of way more things. We should have recycled or donated anything that we could have much earlier. But it’s done, we moved everything out of the apartment into a storage unit except for one suitcase and backpack each (and a few things that my mom so generously agreed to put in her shed). A big shoutout to my mom and her boyfriend, we absolutely couldn’t have done it without them.
Now I’m on a plane, sitting alone between two strangers. I have said goodbye to all our family and friends. I said goodbye to our dog, which has absolutely gutted me. I have said goodbye to my home of five years. The home in which I created this travel blog, put our first dog down, trained my first half marathon, survived a pandemic, watched my (at-the-time) boyfriend graduate college, realized I didn’t want to work in a lab anymore, received a second proposal from my fiance (the first time was a bit of a disaster, but I did say yes), raised our second puppy, planned a wedding, postponed a wedding, got married, learned to work in, learned to love and care for plants, drove home to after countless nights in Denver, hosted Friends’ dinners and girls’ nights and Christmases, realized I still love Taylor Swift, recovered from foot surgery, learned how to workout consistently (and then subsequently forgot), learned how to asked for help when I needed it, found solace and recovery and comfort, and so much more. It’s incredible what a home holds that cannot be put into a box. It’s like Monica says in Friends: “It’s the end of an era.”
And now I am a nomad. Homeless, really. I am my home, Luke is my home. We’re on our own. And our support system is in Denver, where we left them, but I carry them all in my heart. No more calling our best friends that live five minutes away to say, hey, Luke dropped a jar on his foot and needs stitches, can you come help? (Literally happened two weeks ago). That is really scary. I can’t go on anymore about how much I will miss our friends, family, and dog since I just managed to stop crying. But it is so physically painful. Each goodbye is a wound and I am scared to lift the bandage on them to see it all again.
“Are you excited?” People keep asking me. Yes, I’m excited but excited is pretty far down on the list of emotions I am feeling right now. In many ways, it just feels like I’m going on another vacation and I could probably just pretend that that is the case and feel much more excited. But at this point in my life I know that it is important to let yourself feel these things, to really experience them, and then to let them go. Fear, sadness, and anxiety are just a few of the emotions that I am feeling. Over the last week, I have thought so many times that maybe I really don’t want to go. It is too hard, too dramatic. I can’t take another goodbye. I can’t pack another box. I just want to talk about anything else. I just want to have a normal conversation with my friends. I just want to take my dog to the park. Is that normal? I don’t know but I think so. It is just so much easier. I keep thinking, I want to go back to my normal job and house. Maybe I can channel this need for adventure into another hobby. Maybe I can just turn on my streaming service and push away all these uncomfortable feelings and just pretend.
But I can’t because I’m already on a plane and I have my reasons for doing this, even if right now they seem flimsy at best. Maybe they aren’t strong enough reasons but we will find out.
If you want to do something like this you MUST have a strong why. Write it out. Tell your friends and family. It’s important that they understand why it is important to you, I think. So they don’t think you are abandoning them or being selfish (also thoughts I’ve had).
Part of this grief (and it is grief), for me, is that I am saying goodbye to a part of myself. I know that I will not come back to Denver the same person that I am today. While this is a normal part of life, it is not always so self-inflicted. It’s difficult to know that when I come back I will be different. I may have to cut out parts of me that I no longer need or agree with. I will probably realize that I was wrong about some things. My mind will change. My heart may change. The me right now may not recognize the future me. Picking this path is inherently not picking an infinite number of other paths. And that’s scary, but it has to be okay.
I’m all tapped out emotionally at the moment but I look forward to reflecting more as we travel from Seattle to Singapore to Bali.
I hope you enjoyed this series on moving abroad to travel long-term, including these thoughts on departing for a trip around the world. If you’ve made it this far, I just want you to know that I appreciate you. Have you ever moved abroad before? Did you have any of these thoughts as you left home?
Originally written April 27, 2023.
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