See You Later, Canada

As I sit down to write my FIRST ever blog post, I’m sitting in Cape Town, South Africa (one of my favourite cities that I’ve visited on this trip so far), after a hot yoga class, drinking a cappuccino at a cafe, and getting all the feels.

On one hand, it feels like just yesterday that I was sitting in my cozy apartment in downtown Calgary, Canada overlooking the Calgary tower and the Rocky Mountains and hanging out with my cat, Ash. My daily routine of walking to and from my job at CNRL, practicing/teaching yoga, happy hour drinks or visits with friends, volunteering — it all seemed so natural, so easy, so comfortable. On the other hand, these moments seem like distant memories from some other lifetime. And in a way, they are. It wasn’t until I was able to step away from this life, to realize that the routine I was in was more of a rut. What I thought was the perfect life that I had built for myself, now feels so foreign, so... bleh. Do I miss it? In some ways yes - I miss my friends, and my family and think of them often, but I don’t miss the stress, the same ‘ol routine and the constant feeling of always being too busy.

Im 27 right now, and it feels like I’ve done so much with my life, yet so little. From the outside looking in, I appeared to have my shit together. After graduating high school at 17, I immediately went into University. I bounced back and forth between 3 different universities around Western Canada for my Bachelors degree trying to find what specialty was the ‘right’ one for me, until I found geophysics. 5 years later, I had my degree from the U of A, packed up my life (again), and moved to Calgary within days of writing my last final exam. A week later, I was starting my new job at CNRL. Fast forward 5 years, there I still was. I was a team lead for our microseismic monitoring group and an interpretation geophysicist in our thermal assets. I had a lot of responsibility, and added value, yet, something was missing. I had always been on this ‘plan’. Graduate high school. Go to university. Get a good job. Buy a house. Get married. Have kids. But for what? Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been incredibly fortunate and grateful to have accomplished what I have in the past 10 years, but part of me always felt like I was missing something. I felt as if I was no longer ‘filling my cup’ up, or being fulfilled and challenged in the way that I wanted to be.

One of my biggest passions in life is to travel, and its something that I was fortunate to get to do lots of while growing up. Though it wasn’t until my friend Stacy and I were in South America 2 years ago that I realized that I didn’t want to give up on my long time dream of travelling around the world. Booking my flight home from La Paz, Bolivia a few days before having to fly home to get back to work, I was devastated. Work was the last place that I wanted to be, but I knew I had to go back. Looking back, if it wasn’t for this trip, who knows where I would be now. So much has happened in these 2 years since then. Getting back to work I immediately talked to my boss about taking a leave of absence the following year. He supported the idea, but ultimately they couldn’t give it to me. At this point though, I had already made up my mind that I was going, even if that meant I had to resign. I had begun putting funds aside, and started to figure out how to turn my dream of travelling the world into a reality. In the meantime, I pursued my 200 Hr Yoga teacher training — something I had always wanted to do but never could find the time to. It was a discovery for me, about me, and would also enable me to teach around the world if I wanted to. I started travelling as often as I could - England, Portugal, New York, Detroit, Vancouver - basically anywhere and everywhere I could go to get myself away from Calgary and buy myself time until I could do ‘the big one’. Though these trips didn’t necessarily help the bank account in saving for the RTW trip, they helped my sanity - I’ll take that as a win.

As time went on, and spring turned into summer, I was getting closer and closer to my ‘fly day’. I had officially resigned from my job in May, with my last day of work being July 29th. It always felt like SO much time to get everything organized, when in reality, I quickly realized that time was the last thing I had on my side. I had just gotten back from England and realized ‘oh shit’ - I was only 2 months out, and still had essentially everything to do to get ready. It’s not an easy task taking your life as you know it and flipping it upside down and inside out. I had decided I was going to sell basically everything, aside from my car. If I was going to travel for a year, or end up living somewhere else around the world, what good is a house full of stuff back ‘home’ and where was home for me anyway? As you can probably imagine, emptying out an apartment is way easier said than done. I’d lived there for 3 years at this point, and had accumulated so much ‘stuff’. I had a cat that I needed to re-home — by far my hardest choice in choosing to go. Ash was my fur baby, had been with me for the last 5 years and was my constant in Calgary. Having to leave her and have the unknown of where she was going killed me, but if I wanted to do this trip, I had to be willing to let her go. The silver lining was that I found her a great home, somewhere that I would get to see her again, with people that I know would give her the most amazing, loving home. It fell into place rather easily, which I knew was a sign. I don’t hear from them often, but when I do, all I hear about is how much they love her and how happy she is. For me now, thats all that matters. I didn’t want her to stress with living in chaos at home, so once she was moved to her new ‘furever’ home, I really could start diving into clearing out the house. At this point, It was now July. I had one month to pack up my entire life and sort it into one of 3 bins — keep, donate, or garbage, while making sure I had everything that I still needed to live for the next month. The first week or so of this cull was relatively easy; knick knacks, decorations, things I hadn’t used in months/years, those were easy. It was the clothes, the kitchen, the furniture. Things that had been with me or a part of my life for years, or that I needed to use right up to the end. It’s hard to part from these things, but thats all they are — things. I was taking my life from a 800ft² apartment and compressing it into a few totes of mementos I couldn’t part with for sentimental reasons, a tote of clothes at my parents and sisters house for whenever I visited, and my 46L Osprey backpack that I travel with. This was going to be my new life. There were many points during this time that I would ask myself ‘What the hell am I doing? Am I crazy for doing this? Am I making a huge mistake?’, but I kept reminding myself what I wanted and why, and ultimately it meant kept pushing forward. Before I knew it, I was done work, had an empty house that I was walking away from, and a backpack full of carefully selected things that would become my everything.

I didn’t fly out immediately after finishing work. I gave myself 12 days to get my life organized, visit friends and family, and say my goodbyes. I had been planning on travelling until the spring at which point I was likely going to apply for a working Visa abroad, which meant it was going to be a long while before I got to see anyone back in Canada again. Saying goodbye to my parents was actually relatively easy — they were coming to meet me in Portugal in a matter of a month, so I knew I would see them again sooner than I would have if I was back at home anyway. My parents live a 7 hour drive from Calgary, so only seeing them every few months was something I had grown accustomed to. I then went to visit my sister & brother in law, and my nephew. Being away from my nephew and not being able to watch him grow up and be there for a lot of the ‘big’ firsts was a hard truth that I had to face, but I would rather do it now, rather than later, and if I end up living abroad, this was something that I was going to have to get used to quickly. Thankfully, FaceTime and the internet makes it SO much easier to keep in touch. The last thing that I had organized before I left was to get close family and friends to write me letters for when I got homesick. To this day, I still haven’t opened a single one of them (which actually surprises me) and I’m thankful that nearly 4 months in, I haven’t had that strong pull to need to go home. I’ve met so many new friends, many that I know I will see again and have given me that sense of home as Im away, and I feel that i’m exactly where i’m supposed to be, living life to its fullest.

Be fearless in the pursuit of what sets your soul on fire. Taking the leap to leave my job and uproot my entire life wasn’t easy. There were many things that I had to say goodbye to, and many risks that I had to be willing to take, but living my life with the regret of not taking this chance would have been much harder. Sitting here 4 months in, I can wholly say that this was by far the best decision I’ve made. I’m opening my eyes to so many different cultures and experiences that I never would have gotten otherwise, and meeting some incredible people along the way. I’ve already learned so much about myself, and I know I still have a long way to go. I’m learning things to apply to my life wherever I decide to settle down, and trying to take it all in. Right now, I’m choosing me. Sometimes it takes a huge shift, and stepping outside of your comfort zone to realize what you want out of life and what truly makes you happy and to grow. These are the shifts that I want to keep making. We all have two lives, and your second one starts when you realize you only have one — live it to its fullest.