For the last five years I’ve wanted to go and travel Europe. When I was stressed at my first job (and I was always stressed at my first job), I would print out travel articles and place them in a red folder with the label “Escape.” I planned on quitting on my two-year anniversary, but somehow made it to four-and-a-half years. When it looked like they might need to do layoffs, I offered to be the first one figuring I’d travel Europe and come back and work at Sephora for awhile. But I wasn’t laid off. And then my next job at Metzger was too good of an opportunity, so I went straight there.
As I started contemplating travel again, I simply ran out of reasons not to go. I had the money, I’d put in a year at Metzger and just needed to get through one big client event, and I wouldn’t be traveling in the summer (hate the heat). Plus, I’d made great connections at Metzger that would help in a new job search. And I was exhausted. So I quit.
I know quitting a perfectly good job in this economy is just this side of crazy. I also know that when I get back, I won’t have a place to live or a job, and that can only lead into a depressing situation. But I’m also ok with doing clean up on aisle six until I get my feet back underneath me. And I’m also running out of time when I’ll have the opportunity to just pick up and leave.
After my parents passed away when I was 24, I had this sinking feeling in my stomach that I wouldn’t make it to 30. It’s not rational. Or something I still really think is true. But losing both your parents within six weeks of each other in your early twenties tends to affect your rational thoughts. And I turned 29 on Oct. 13, and 30 still seems ominous to me. When you look at the ages of my parents when they passed away, this is technically my mid-life crisis.
I grew up in a traveling family. We didn’t spend a lot of money on cars, clothes or entertainment. But each year my Dad would plan a two-week vacation that was the highlight of his year (he hated his job as an attorney). It brought some memorable trips including the time we went to England when I was in the third grade, and my parents paid us 3 cents for every fact we could recite about England at the dinner table. It was our spending money for the trip, and I earned $100 dollars, so I was pretty damn knowledgeable about England by the time we left. Some trips were less memorable like the car trips in our station wagon across the Nevada desert to California (the highlight being where my sister would use her feet on my face to move me as far away from her as possible.)
Frances Mayes talked about the need to surprise your life in the “Under the Tuscan Sun.” I’ve always related to that desire for dramatic change. The desire to purchase a house in Tuscany. Or as it relates to me, the desire to spend Christmas by myself in Siena. I’ll be leaving for my journey on Nov. 10. So far, Reykjavik, Iceland; Oslo, Norway; Stockholm, Sweden; Barcelona, Spain; Athens, Greece; Siena & Tuscany, Italy; and Paris, France are on the menu. I’m also hoping to do London, Prague, Switzerland, Ireland, Austria and Belgium. That’s a lot for three months. But I think the trade off of being poor, homeless and jobless upon my return will make this journey worthwhile.
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did so. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain
