I was terrified. I am terrified. Piki and I worked damn hard to build the life we had. It was a life of comfort, stability, freedom. We had a home, stable jobs, two dogs, friends, a growing family of nieces and nephews. So why were we “giving it up” to travel into the unknown?
If you’ve read my previous posts, you can understand why we chose to take this gap year. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a difficult decision or one that wont come with its own sacrifices.
My biggest fears were at the forefront of my mind.
How do we start again?
Where do we live when we get back? We can’t guarantee family will take us in for an indefinite amount of time. We can’t get a rental without recent work history.
What if we can’t find work? What if we don’t have enough money in the interim?
What if we regret it?
So many things went through my mind and there were countless moments I felt like putting a pin in the plan and keeping the secure life we had. But I just knew the resentment I would hold towards myself for not trying, not experiencing the world, would stick with me for the rest of my life.
Re-homing our beautiful dogs was heart-breaking and a decision we know many would not understand. It didn’t come lightly and we looked into all other alternatives. Unfortunately, it was the only option we had. We knew we wanted them to be re-homed together and to a reliable family and if this wasn’t the case, we wouldn’t have been able to leave.
Resigning from our roles and officially becoming “unemployed” was difficult to come to terms with. I’d worked since the age of 14, with money-saving one of my biggest motivators. Piki and I knew the value of a dollar and that hard-work earns money. We had always worked to build a future and to fund our dreams to travel. Knowing we would no longer be bringing in an income was unsettling. Were we stupid for giving up stable employment for a silly fantasy? Alas, we chose fantasy. We only live once and why not live on the edge? I sure don’t hope I’ll regret saying that.
Ultimately, we know the hard-working, dedicated and reliable individuals we are. Finding work upon our return may come with challenges but we were prepared and willing to put in the hard work to start again. We had solid work history, excellent skills and knew our value in the workforce.
Piki and I had only ever rented since we had lived together from the age of 18. This was always a strategic decision based on the fact that we didn’t want a mortgage commitment at our age. Post Covid, we had considered buying a house. At the time, everyone we knew was buying and it felt as though that is what we should be doing too. We didn’t know if we would be able to pursue our dream of travelling so it only made sense to buy a house and think of settling down. Our hearts always had other plans though and we just KNEW it wasn’t the time for us to settle. This worked in our favour and we were able to easily ned our lease and move out, no hassles.
Knowing we were technically “homeless” was absolutely scary. We didn’t want to rely or expect family to take us in. There is no larger fear than that of being a burden to someone else. We had obviously spoken to our family about our concerns in terms of housing once we decided to return home and they had provided us comfort in knowing we had a place to stay if we needed. Our plan remains unknown at this stage, however when the time comes, we will work as hard as we did at 18 to live independently, as we will at 30.
We also knew we needed to have back-up funds, the “start again savings”. A set amount of money that we wanted to return with and whenever the time came on our travels that we so happen to reach that amount, we knew it was time to go home. We took into account approximately 6 months living expenses to determine a comfortable amount we wanted to return with.
I think I underestimated how much I would miss my family. I had experienced some set backs with my family over the course of the last 2 years. I had grown distant with my parents and siblings, more or less due to a series of misunderstandings, hurt and grievances and essentially just being on different pages in life.
My siblings had young children and my parents were basking in grandparent glory. I, however, had a rather large dislike for children. Don’t get me wrong, I was so excited to become an Aunty and I love my niece and nephews immensely. I just found it hard to relate once children came into the picture. I’m not a kid person to start with, I found it difficult to bond, not only with the kids, but with my parents and siblings too. All conversation felt as though it became centered around children. Around parenting. And I didn’t have an input. I’m sure that my family would view it differently but it was true. Kids became the focus and I lost my place quickly. All of a sudden, I wasn’t involved in conversation, outings were had without me, my “priorities were different”, one-on-one time with my family became less available. I quickly turned in on myself and lost a lot of contact with my family. I don’t blame them now (truthfully, I did for a long time) their lives were on a different course and of course family dynamics would change. It didn’t make it any less upsetting or challenging for me though. I felt as though I had to change and fit into their lives but there was no consideration to fit into mine.
So to say I was ‘running away’ isn’t completely inaccurate. I wanted out, I wanted to live MY life. I wanted to be surrounded by people who were like-minded and cared to fit into my life.
I held onto this resentment up until about 2 months prior to leaving. As our fly out date approached quickly, I started to panic. I started to fear I hadn’t spent enough time with my family to make up the year or more I would miss. I began to reach out to my family to make plans, trying to cram it all into 2 months! This was obviously unrealistic given they had their own commitments but it was what I needed to try and make me feel like I had, I don’t know, put in enough effort?
3 weeks out from fly out day, we moved out of our rental and moved in with Mum and Dad. It was supremely awkward to begin with. Mum and I particularly weren’t on the best of terms for a long time so I think we were both cautious of each other and were feeling on edge living in the same house. But that quickly changed. Mum and I spent many hours talking in that small 3 weeks. Feelings were shared, words were spoken and understandings were come to. I learnt more about my Mum in that time than I had in my whole life. The same goes for my Dad. It saddens me that we were making up for years lost over the course of 3 weeks. However, I trust this was the way it was meant to be.
My whole perspective changed in the last week before we left. The emotions hit me all at once and I realised just how much I was going to miss. I still fear what I am missing out on even as I am sitting here in Cambodia. I miss my friends, family, work, home, dogs. I miss it all. But I don’t regret it, not yet anyway!
“The worst thing to regret is the thing you didn’t do, when you knew all along it was what you wanted.”
