I originally wrote this back in April just before returning home to Philadelphia for the first time after more than a year on the road in Latin America. Since then I’ve been home a second time and I’m realizing that going back and forth – slipping back into my old life for a short time before saying good-bye all over again – is just another normal part of expat life, like never quite fitting in.
After eighteen months away I’m finally headed home. As I prepare to travel to Philadelphia this week I find myself reflecting on the challenges of overcoming the initial culture shock I experienced when I first arrived in Mexico. After more than a year of traveling and the most recent few months spent settling into a new apartment in Mexico City I can honestly say that I’ve come a long way in adjusting to my new surroundings, though at times I still feel dislocated.
Philadelphia mural on 19th street just blocks from my old apartment
Returning home to Philadelphia will not only be an opportunity to reflect, but also a chance to reconnect with the people I left behind. Friends and family whose lives continued on without me. While I traveled I missed weddings, reunions and life-changing moments. As I bounced from city to city and across two continents my friends back home accepted new jobs, earned promotions, bought homes and started families.
When I left Philadelphia nearly all of my friends lived in the city. Now that I’m returning home hardly anyone remains. After sticking together through high school and college we’ve finally dispersed to pursue our own paths, be it moving to the suburbs for that added sense of security, across the country for a better job, overseas to earn a second degree, experience a different culture, learn a foreign language and pursue a new career.
Ten years ago when I began my University studies I remember being told that whatever I choose to study would likely be only the first of several – if not many – career paths that I would explore over the course of my adult life. At that time I didn’t envision that my first major career change would occur before I turned thirty. Nor did I expect, for that matter, that I’d be living the life of an expat in one of the world’s largest cities.
The career I started out with wasn’t the one I had planned for, rather something I stumbled into with the help of a friend’s older sister and a local temp agency. At the time of graduation I didn’t know what I wanted to do – aside from return to Italy where I spent my semester abroad and travel – so I accepted a position as an administrator at a large investment company. It was a job that people from all over the world would have been grateful to have, though at the time I didn’t see it that way. Instead, I felt trapped and unfulfilled.
Over the next few years I spent a lot of time and energy navigating my way through office politics all the while becoming increasingly less enthusiastic about the direction in which my career was headed. I envisioned years and even decades of returning day after day to the same tiny cubicle, knowing it wasn’t where I wanted to be. And even then, replacing the words tiny cubicle with corner office didn’t do anything to change my mind.
My center city Philadelphia office building
Instead, I began setting aside a percentage of each paycheck to fund the trip that was beginning to take form inside my head. At the same time I passed over promotions, skipped out on company events and began seriously planning my escape from the corporate world. Finally in late 2008 I quit my job, donated most of my belongings, packed up what was left and flew to Mexico City. I spent the following year traveling by bus all the way to the southern tip of Argentina.
It wasn’t until about halfway through my travels when I decided that I craved the flexibility in my daily life to pick up and move at any time and to be able to continue traveling and exploring the world while supporting myself and sharing my experiences. Every day I was learning to live with less, yet I was increasingly healthy and happy. My year of traveling turned out to be more than a temporary career break. It opened my eyes to all of the things that inspired me and the possibility of a whole new way of living and working.
During my travels I had maintained a simple ‘postcard home’ style travel blog which never amounted to much beyond what I had originally intended it to be, but I thoroughly enjoyed creating and maintaining it. I knew I wanted to share my experiences through writing and inspire others in the same way that I had been inspired by a handful of great travel writers. However, actually making the jump from unemployed to self-employed, doing something that I had never done before and might not even be good at caused me to stop and think.
It’s these thoughts of whether or not I’ll be able to achieve location independence as a freelance travel writer that frequently keep me up at night and I wonder if a lifestyle built around such a concept is really achievable and sustainable.
These days I spend more time than ever in front of my computer screen. With no formal training in writing or publishing it hasn’t been easy. As I struggle to find my voice I’m managing to make every mistake common to beginning writers. One of the hardest parts has been putting myself out there, open to review and critique.
As I travel home this week it’ll be all of these things taking up space in my mind. I’m looking forward to visiting with family members, reconnecting with old friends and exploring with a new set of eyes the city I left behind. Strolling the cobblestone streets of Old City, reminiscing about lunch breaks spent in Rittenhouse Square and training runs along Kelly Drive. Making my way through the crowds in center city with less urgency than before and gazing up at my old office building, wondering about the person who now sits in my 42nd floor cubicle and what my life might be like if that person were still me.
Now, six months later, many of these questions remain unanswered – but there’s honestly no part of me that longs for the life I left behind.
Have you made a similar life change? Do you have any regrets?
