World Trip

The apartment is empty. Empty after taking all of our things out, some were sold, some were given away, some we are keeping and some we threw away. And now it sits there, empty, but filled with memories, good moments and experiences we lived in the last 2 years and 9 months.

It has been a process, well, moving is always a process but I’m not talking of a normal move from one house to another, no, this is moving from one house to NO house, to being houseless, to be free to come and go as we please.

“And so, the journey begins!” Those were the words I found myself saying while we looked at the empty space. Even though the journey already started a while back. Just getting the plane tickets, organizing the visas, packing, quitting our jobs. All of these things are part of the journey. So it began already a while ago. But more than packing, more than quitting our jobs, more than talking with people about our world trip, leaving our home feels so much more final, like a big milestone, something that breaks our story, the before and after.

So now we are staying at my girlfriend’s parents’ house for a few weeks. It’s a nice transition, it’s made this process easier because we had to force ourselves to organize so many things already, not specifically about the trip (though we did keep it in mind) but just going through all the things we own and deciding if it’s something we want to keep, if it’s something that we are actually using (or will use) or if it’s something we are holding onto for whatever reason. We have gotten rid of many things that we had just because we had space where to put them but not really fulfilling any need or having any purpose.

Every time I got rid (gave away, sold or threw) something I would have this feeling of lightness, of letting go of something that I don’t need to carry. The famous “Getting weight off of your shoulders” feeling. I could go into coaching mode and tell you how we are often carrying things around with us for so long that we don’t even feel them anymore, it is our “normal” now. And that we have to let go of many things we don’t even know we are holding onto. So that we can be more present, more free, more happy, more alive or more in the moment, but I don’t want to bore you with a “be better” speech right now.

The point is that having this transition of having our own place, to moving out but not starting the trip yet has made the experience of letting go more present and it has made our stress levels lower because we don’t have to do everything at the same time, we have more time to deal with things as they come. First, get rid of stuff we don’t want/need, then move out and store a few things we still want/need and then, do a check-up for the things we still need for the trip and finish packing the bags.

And so… The journey begins!

So we bought the tickets. Now it feels like it’s actually happening. We’ve been talking about doing this for more than a year and a half and for all this time we’ve spoken about it as something that has been decided, no as something that we would like to do some day or wish to do but don’t see how it would be possible. No! we always spoke about it like something that was final, something that was happening no matter what.

But, besides talking about it, and buying some clothing or small things thinking on the trip, we had not really taken any action. The things that we bought were things we would buy anyway even if we were not going on the trip, it’s just we bought a different model or better quality thinking of the future usage we would give it.

Now, actually spending hundreds of euros to pay for the tickets, choosing a date for flying, it really makes it feel like it’s something way more present and real. Now we don’t have to say a general date like “January” or “The beginning of next year”, no! Now we can say “The 21st of January!” having this set date helps manifest it and set it in reality. And after having the date set, now we can go ahead of book an AirBnB for the first days we will be there. One thing connects to the other and more things start happening, the ball starts rolling.

Being in the final days of my job as a front end developer, I find my patience with problems short and my frustrations while debugging bigger. Im not sure if it’s always been like this and I’ve been putting up with it while not really giving it the importance that it warrants. Or maybe it is a new thing that is happening now only because I know that in a few days more I will not have to do any more coding and now that I know this I just don’t want any more if it. I’m not really sure which of the two options is the real one but in the end it doesn’t really matter, the effect is the same and changes are being made, decisions being taken.

So many times in our life we don’t see what is really important to us because other things are occupying our mind. Take a moment to slow down, look at your day/life from a different perspective and feel into what you are really doing.