In the last 24 hours, I’ve hit a wall in the form of sentences becoming harder to write and read, thoughts becoming pure fog, and my body wanting to just remain in a lazy curl in bed. I’m running through my coping mechanisms like I usually do my to do lists. I can’t quite tell what the cause of this recent downturn is. Is it my mental health? Is it my body finally reacting to what I’ve put it through over this recent nomading stint? Is it adjusting to having roommates? I’m not sure. I do know two things though: I’m having a hard time adjusting to being in one place and I’m very very very happy.
I have friends literally all over the world that I connect deeply with. I have a job where I feel incredibly high impact and tuned in. I have an amazing apartment where I can see the sun rise and set all from my dear room. I have fantastic friends turned roommates I actually get along with and want to spend time with. I have a community of people in person to engage with and get to know deeply. I get to use my body regularly in sports, at the gym, to walk along the beach, etc. I am reading interesting books that inspire me with new ideas. I have numerous passion projects I am trying to run with that keep me up at night.
I need to recalibrate to a normal life. I got used to trying on other people’s lives for a time that to be living my own feels strange. Instead of looking around the gym thinking “I’ll never see these people again”, I’ve already become friends with the security guard of the building next door who I now have seen everyday for over a week.
I don’t know what to do with this reality of having a desk, a chair, and a bed. The last time I was in San Diego, I was practically squatting in my own apartment living on an air mattress and stubbornly refusing anything that threatened to tie me down. This round of nomading though taught me that I don’t want the identity of nomad to be a permanent one. People romanticize it and make it something it’s not. I’m more than this little identity “nomad”.
A friend asked me this past weekend, “So – what’s your next adventure?!” I don’t have one unless you count the 2019 Women’s World Cup nearly a full year from now. I’m okay with that. I’m reveling in how uncomfortable my own life feels – it means there’s growth to be found.
I’m smirking at myself now as I reflect on the situation I find myself – within the first day of moving here I decided I’d start waking up at 5am. God forbid I am comfortable for a single day. I couldn’t even let myself have 24 hours before trying to challenge myself and to make living in one place just a tiny bit more difficult.
I feel as though I have location jet-lag where I’m not quite sure where I am instead of what time it is. It gets worse the more I think about it in the same way it hits you how tired you are when you start looking at the time it is “back home” for your body when you’re in a new timezone far from your last one.
I feel a desire to disengage – turn in and go to sleep. I love this moment of choice and awareness though. Wanting to disengage means I’m running into something that’s challenging me. I’m fortunate enough to be self aware in realizing that’s the case. Taking a step back though, is this the problem I want to have exhaust me? I’m not quite sure yet :). Sigh. The hardest part of returning to normal life is to carry the lessons I learned from nomading into this new, more mundane context. How do I keep an adventurous spirit in a place that feels known to me? I can’t wait to find out.
For now, I am not mapping out any big adventures. I am taking a week off of work September 10th and plan on spending most of that time detoxing from caffeine in San Diego reading books :D. I want to dig into what about day to day life I love. After all, it’s easy to love life when it’s one lucky adventure after another. How do you love life when it’s the same setting each day? Strangely, it’s the same challenge one faces with someone you love.
agm 