So I’ve started a new job right? I’m back to working, having a routine, packing my own lunches and dressing up. Of course now would be the perfect time for me to start having wanderlust so badly that I’m checking job boards in foreign countries.
Maybe it’s because I’ve started reading more travel blogs and my twitter stream is full of travel bloggers and travel deals. Maybe it’s because other people are taking vacations (and honeymoons) and their pictures are clogging my facebook stream. Maybe it’s because I’m talking with people I met on my travels, to friends who are living overseas and telling me that I need to live overseas while I’m YOUNG (and apparently, I’m not getting any younger). Maybe it’s because I have no trips planned right now. Maybe it’s a mixture of all these.
The fact of the matter is, I’m settling down into life in Boulder with potentially two jobs and the flighty, wanderlusting girl that I am is freaking out about it. I’m watching my freedom to go where I please evaporate but at the same time, I need money to go where I want to go so I HAVE to work.
LIFE IS SO HARD. /dramatic moment.
The problem is, I don’t just want to travel. Travel means short term. Travel means lugging around a backpack and then ending up right back where I started from. Don’t get me wrong, I will forever be a traveler. I just would like my homebase to be in Europe so that traveling will be less expensive and more accessible.
Putting it out there.
I’m surrounded by people here in Boulder who believe that if you put it out there to the Universe, what you wish for will manifest itself in some way, shape or form. I’d have to agree with them. After all, I ended up here in Boulder and got a job about a week from going dead broke. There was a lot of putting it out there for both of these things to happen and each time, something happened.
I’ve been pondering a move overseas for years. When I was backpacking my way across Europe, I always had in the back of my mind a sort of metered gauge on whether I could live in this city or not. Since I visited Munich in October of 2008 I have dreamed of living there. I fell in love with Amsterdam and it registered up there in the MUST LIVE HERE category. So did Bergen in Norway, Seville in Spain and lastly, Paris.
I know I will live overseas. It was a question before, but over the past year I have solidified that into more of a definite thing. Something I must do or else regret for the rest of my life. Now the only question about it is…
How do I get there?
The process of getting a job overseas (in places that are not Bahrain–I’ve been recruited to work there) still eludes me. I search JobsInHubs.com which features many administrative positions but to get a Design job? I have no idea. Especially since most companies in Europe are either required (for some reason I think this is true and I could google that but well, I’m lazy) or hire mostly EU citizens over other nationalities. For silly reasons like they don’t have to sponsor them getting visas and such. And I’m…well, I’m an American citizen. Who wants to leave her country and work elsewhere but still call the US her home.
Ish.
Oh and then there’s the whole language barrier thing. As in, I don’t speak any other languages outside of English but don’t want to live in the UK. Small, minor details.
So what am I going to do? I’m going to put it out there. I’m going to effing manifest this dream into a reality, someway, somehow.
What I don’t understand is why I’m never satisfied to be just in one place. Why, after barely a year of being out of New York City and just barely 6 months into living in Boulder, I find myself longing to leave again. Longing to explore, to have adventures, to get myself back overseas.
Maybe that is the consequences of being…well, me. A wanderlusting, never-happy-settling-down, adventurous, explorer. And while I, along with other people in my life (coughMYPARENTScough), have a hard time accepting that as who I am, I am going to have to come to terms with it and be happy that I have this itch, for some people do not have it at all. I just wish it would surface at more opportune times. Like, when I’m not settling into a job.
So that begs to question, what type of person are you?
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You know how I feel about manifesting and intentions. Go get ‘em
I’m a dreamer – I fantasise about going to far off places, moving away from everything I’ve known . . . but I always talk myself out of it, because deep down I don’t think I could leave my family and friends and start up elsewhere. I’m a traveller in my mind, but a homebody at heart, I guess!
OMG. You kinda just described me!
I’ve never been out of the country, though… strangely, however, I feel I belong in Europe, in the Med somewhere. Seriously. It’s all I think about. And the HOW question kills me, as I have no idea…
First, I love the new design and I’m so glad the job is going well! I’m so happy for you! For me, I tend to be settled and not as wanderlusting around, but lately, all I want to do is pack a bag and head out. It’s amazing how hard that bug bites once you get going. I am happy in one place now but every 2-3 years, I immediately get an itch to move, it’s ingrained in me.
I have that same itch, and it used to be every 2-3 years but now it’s coming along more often!
I know that I’m either going to move out east or to Europe within the next few years.
I know exactly how you feel! I lived in Frankfurt, Germany in 2008…and within the last six months I had been missing Europe TERRIBLY.
And then this amazing opportunity came along just last week. It’s still kind of a secret, so shhh. But I’m going to the Republic of Georgia for a year to teach English!! I’m postponing my senior year in college to go do this.
(I would suggest the program for you – even if you can’t go right away, because the program just started recruiting. And they’re looking for up to 2000 people. And it’s all free. Completely subsidized by the Georgian gov’t. And we get a stipend while living there too! Let me know if you want more information.
)
girl. wanderlusters like us aren’t meant for the 9 to 5!! i TOTALLY see you out there living in europe. being an expat (while it’s not exactly “traveling” anymore) is GREAT for wanderlust. i’m loving it so far!! i’m trying to create a freelance business for myself, so i wouldn’t know how to get an actual job in the area you’d live in but good luck with it all! i believe you can do it!!!