During my recent blog switch over, I spent a lot of time going through older posts and either reworking them or turning them into drafts to play with later. Since this blog dates back to 2008, there were a LOT of posts to go through. In rereading them, I noticed a theme: while chronicling my interior design job hunt, I continuously made comments about how I wanted to travel the world.
February 2009: “oh dear god. it’s 2009. it’s february 2009. i’m currently in the air, on my way back to kansas city.. indefinitely. this was not what i wanted. but i haven’t gotten what i wanted yet this year, so i guess i’m not surprised.” … “i decided – quite possibly irrationally – that i am going to apply for jobs in hawaii. seriously. it fits my criteria.. near the water, decent weather, plus, islands are cool. and it probably feels like a different country (i don’t know though, i’ve never been). then i decided, my next two trips are going to be a road trip along the west coast of canada (another place i have never been) and either south africa, australia/indonesia/thailand or argentina. i’ll be taking a poll shortly. give me pros and cons. the canada trip will be first. because it will be cheaper. and if i move to hawaii, then the south pacific will be closer and cheaper. maybe so will argentina?
June 2009: “most of my professors and friends have told me i’m the most well-traveled person they know. i take that as a compliment, because it’s no secret that i love to travel. but i’ll let you in on a secret: i don’t like the 5 star hotel, guided tour sort of travel. i’d rather stay in a tiny inn, off the tourist trail, surrounded by locals, and explore from there. the beach isn’t for me either, unless it’s a rocky, craggy beach with cliffs and black sand.
i like to learn from my travels. i want to see a place from a local’s eye. people-watching is one of my favorite activities, and i can sit somewhere for hours with a journal, watercolors and a camera. i also won’t be able to tell you what my favorite city is, or my favorite delicacy from a certain place. each village or city i have been to has it’s charm. one of my favorite restaurants is a tiny indian place in the charing cross/cowcaddens part of glasgow – aptly named the wee curry shop. they can probably seat 15 people comfortably, 20 uncomfortably. 15 minutes away is another fantastic place called stravaigin, a traditional scottish eatery with a twist. excellent food. and in rottenburg, germany, you have to try a schneeballe — a crispy pastry found only in this town where kris kringle markts are year round. i’ve had fresh fish from the aegean, a rich chocolatey, cream-filled puff from the place that created them in istanbul and homemade haggis [which really isn’t that bad!]. i’ve danced a traditional turkish wedding dance, a scottish ceidlih, and rocked out to a scottish band in the basement of a bar.
my point is, i have learned so much from each place i’ve gone, the things i did or didn’t do there, and the people that i came across, that i would be hard-pressed to tell you what my favorite or least favorite place is. i love venice for it’s proximity to the water, florence for the shops, athens for the ancient city of plaka and the modern agorai, new york for the diversity, denver for the mountain and liberal mindedness, seattle for the trendiness and the hipster scene and barcelona for its beaches.”
September 2010: “i also love – adore, cherish, fantasize about – traveling. so why not take my creative outlet into a traveling kind of job? what could i do that would pay me to travel the world? (ok, maybe i am taking this book a little too seriously and by “reevaluate my life” i mean “find a new career path that allows me to get the hell out of dodge”…)
journalist?
travel writer?
photographer?
novelist?
painter?
a person that travels solely to photograph and write about her surroundings and then comes home to sell that?
or why not try all of the above? i could travel, write about it, take gorgeous photos and then come home, have an exhibition and compile a book.
but then again…. who am i kidding? i doubt anyone would pay me to travel, and even if they did, the book that came out with be so similar to all of the other travel books that are out: “i traveled, i found myself, i came home and i was a better person for it.” where’s the book that says, “i traveled, got really drunk and/or high, got pregnant by a gypsy, got malaria in the congo, was hit by a truck in moscow and ended up in jail on suspicion of being a terrorist in australia”…?
f*** it. i think i’m going to go traveling…”
October 2010: “i want to take on the world… i just don’t know how to do it.”
February 2011:“lights flicker outside, the city rushes by me. my mind races to another place, another time, another face. the city rushes by me, but i’m lost.”
August 2011: “i want to know what i want. when i was in college, i told everyone that i was going to move to new york when i graduated. the big city, near my family, to where it was lively and chaotic all the time. where am i, in actuality? i’m living in the same town i grew up in – the same small city i keep trying to escape, i’m working two jobs, barely making ends meet, and i can’t catch a break in my job hunt. the jobs i’m at don’t pay or offer the chance for growth or promotion.
i’m ambitious, driven and determined… but the more and more things don’t go my way – the more and more jobs i get rejected by, the more money i pour into my portfolio, the next email i get that says they’re not hiring, or that i’m not what they’re looking for… that there re more qualified candidates out there… they make my heart hurt.
i’m looking for a chance: a chance to learn from someone in the industry, a chance to get my foot – even a toe! – into the door… but the door keeps getting slammed in my face.
is this my chance to realise what i really want to do? is this the universe telling me i’m not supposed to be a designer? that i’m supposed to travel the world, writing? that i’m supposed to be a housewife? that i’m destined to work in the restaurant industry?
please universe. give me some clear sign. give me a chance to show someone what i can do. give me a chance to know what i’m supposed to be.”
December 2012: “i get too much enjoyment and fulfillment out of travel and out of helping others to spend my life surrounded by material things.
i want to spend time working in an orphanage, an animal shelter, and i want to write about my experiences. i want people to look up to me, not as a wealthy scion of something, but as a person who does good in the world and connects with people on a human level.
there are several quotes that speak to me on this, words that inspire me and invigorate me.
“i may not have gone where i intended to go, but i think i have ended up where i needed to be,” douglas adams
“finish each day and be done with it. you have done what you could. some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. tomorrow is a new day. you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense,” emerson (this quote is written above my bunk)
“if you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there,” george harrison”
present day: I still don’t know what I am doing. I have no bloody clue. Right now, I’m sitting on my bed in my hostel in Dunedin, New Zealand before a seven hour shift at work during the rugby test. I’m wrapped in a blanket, the window is wide open and the cars are flying by on the street below. Is this my life? Am I just cruising until I die? Until I figure out how to mesh my passions with my nomadic yearnings with an income?
Still waiting on that sign, Universe.