3 Continents, 18 Countries

Did that really just happen?  Or, was it all a dream?

or was it magic?

2018 was, objectively, the best year of my life.

I mean, sure, I was chosen to be a live mannequin for Hawthorn Mall’s Limited Too window display back in 1995…… the same year I met Anna Chlumsky at a Bruegger’s Bagels but yeah, totally, you’re right.  2018 was better.

For an entire year, I got to travel the world on my own terms.  Answering to no one but myself.  Doing it my way.  12 months.  18 countries.  78 cities.  13 jobs.  3 cell phones.  2 marriage proposals.  400 bandaids and an Italian beef t-shirt.  2018 was more than just a traveler’s wet dream.  It changed me.  And healed me.  And unlocked something inside of me that I can’t quite articulate.

WHAT

Looking back, it doesn’t seem real.  In what universe do your wildest dreams come true?

Oprah said, ‘The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams’ and honey?  2018 was my biggest adventure yet.  I had, the time of my life.  No, I’ve never felt like this before.  Yes, I swear.

it’s the truth: i’ve never wanted to be al roker until right now

From sailing the Med to starring in Zumba workout videos.  From hiking Everest Base Camp to crawling through the Cu Chi Tunnels.  I snorkeled, surfed, glamped and raked.  Skydived, sandboarded, cliff jumped, and quad biked.  I fell down a hill, in a bush, through a wall, and off a motorbike into the ca-raziest traffic.  I swam with bioluminescent plankton in Thailand, toured the Great Pyramids of Egypt on camelback, and made it through the year without dying (some say my biggest accomplishment).

Stretched in different directions, pushed out of my comfort zone, the only constant was change.  So, what did I learn on this mega-monster expedition?  WELL…… let’s see.

I learned that ‘naturist’ means ‘nudist’, pigeon is delicious, and diarrhea doesn’t just ‘go away’.  I learned that most foreigners think I’m German (huh?), the word ‘cold’ in Moroccan Arabic sounds like George Jetsons’ aerocar (‘brrrrt!’), and mutton is an adult sheep (I had no idea).  Did you know that shawarma can be spelled 17 different ways!?  Or that Yorkshire pudding is a popover TOP HAT for your meal?  Amazing.

As stated from the very beginning, the goal of this past year was to gain the critical life skills necessary to survive more than 5 minutes of a zombie apocalypse.  After working in a garden and vegan kitchen and surf camp and pig farm and cat café and spiritual retreat center and hygiene awareness clinic and hostel and 2 vineyards…… and as a nanny and English teacher and school builder…… I think I’ve successfully gained an additional 15 minutes in an end-of-days scenario and I couldn’t be prouder.

vietnamee mommy don’t play

2018 was a constant bombardment of different people, situations, ideas, and ways of living.  It was a daily exercise of adaptation, flexibility and trust.  It made me question everything.  How I want to live.  How I want to love.  The things I absolutely need…… and the patterns I absolutely need to break.

It showed me that carbs aren’t scary, exercise doesn’t have to be in a gym, and meditation is so much more than lying still and trying to quiet your mind.  It taught me that we, as listeners, have a responsibility to communicate how much attention we’re capable of sustaining and we, as neighbors, can love each other just as deeply without a common language.

Splitting my time between families, homestays, volunteer orgs and intentional communities, I was hit over the head with two truths.  One, there is no right or wrong way of living.  And two, a home isn’t a place, but a feeling you can carry with you wherever you go.

oh hey, SuSu! lookin’ good girl.

As my final act as your neighborhood Spiderman She Gone Girl, I’d like to set the record straight, answer any questions you may have, and put 2018 to bed, once and for all.  Let’s deep dive into Recurring Themes and roll right into Most Frequently Asked Questions.  If you need to pee, now’s a good time.  This post is longer than usual so I strongly suggest that you pee.  You back?  Great.  Let’s do this.

2018: 5 RECURRING THEMES

1 – SELF LOVE

Starting with the most cringe-worthy, this year was never about me ‘finding myself’.  It was about me ‘learning to love myself’.  Which is so embarrassing to say out loud.

I’ve always loved my life and felt genuinely happy every step of the way…… but under the surface, I’ve never felt good enough.  Smart enough.  Skinny enough.  Pretty enough.  Always too loud and too sweaty.  Not fashionable.  Perpetually alone.

So, imagine my surprise when 2018 turned into Inner Healing 101: a crash course on accepting myself as I am, loving myself unconditionally, and committing to fully heal myself so that my light can shine brighter.

Thanks, mostly, to the intentional communities I lived with, I was able to break down my walls, shed my layers, release my fears, and find a peace that I’ve never known.  (Or known and forgotten, fleeting glimpses through the years that didn’t stick.)

I come away from the year feeling whole.  Feeling full power.  Feeling comfortable with myself, my body, and my place in the world, and finally knowing, deep down, that I am enough and I am worthy of the love that I want.

2 – FAITH

Uprooting yourself from the only life you’ve ever known, to follow a dream that only you can see, takes faith.  Extracting yourself from a great job in your prime money-making years (prime retirement-saving years) is fucking stupid takes faith as well.

I knew that in order to truly relax into the experience and sink into all the delicious possibilities, I had to turn off distractions…… and any worries or fears about what the future may hold.

I gave myself the gift of not worrying about the future for a full calendar year.

I gave myself the gift of time.

Time to waste.  Time to think.  Time to reflect.  To write.  To listen.  To breathe.  (To plan my next 15 years of travel.  hah)  Time free from beeps and buzzes and rings.  From getting jolted out of my thoughts or twitching, involuntarily, to reach for a phone out of habit or boredom or both.

Turning off 90% of my notifications, getting rid of a carrier plan, and going wi-fi only was magical.  And comPLETEly impractical if you have a job, a kid, a crush or any serious responsibilities (of which, I had none).

3 – SOLO TRAVEL

As my first-ever, non-work-related, solo travel experience, I give it two enthusiastic thumbs up.

On the one hand, you can do EXACTLY what you want to do without the pressure of managing someone else’s expectations or answering that dreaded, age-old question, ‘I don’t care, what do you wanna do?’

On the other hand, you’re forced to extend yourself.  Being in a foreign land without a friend or social crutch forces you to engage.  To wade through potential discomfort and awkwardness and forge real connections.  If my friends had been with me most of the year, I don’t think I would have grown as much.  Because I wouldn’t have needed to.

I know in certain circles, traveling alone is still considered taboo.  But I’m here to say it’s effing amazing; give it a shot.  It’s like a choose your own adventure book but, you know, in real life!  Start small!  See things from a different angle.  It doesn’t matter where you go or what you do, travel ANYWHERE has the potential to change you.

4 – GRATITUDE

I’m fully aware that I’m a lucky S-O-B.  I wouldn’t trade my life for anyone else’s and I thank God every day for what He’s given me.

I’m thankful for this opportunity.  For the new skills the extra 15 minutes in a zombie apocalypse.  For the emotional WERK I put in.  For the most ridiculous memory highlight reel.  And for the family & friends who’ve supported me, old friends who joined me, and new friends I met along the way.

If money was no object and I could do anything I wanted, I would repeat 2018 day-for-day.

Before I left Egypt, I paid one last entrance fee to wander around the pyramids, ride one last camel, and take it all in.  Right before closing, I went inside the Great Pyramid and found myself alone (with the guard) for 20 minutes.  He suggested I meditate and who am I to argue, so there I was.  My last official stop on the world tour… sitting cross-legged on the floor, back against King Cheops tomb… getting more emotional by the minute.

I tried to meditate but it quickly turned into a prayer of gratitude.  For life.  For the past year.  For everything.  I cried like a baby.  Then, realizing I was bawling inside the last remaining wonder of the ancient world…… I cried even harder.  (That Egyptian security guard did NOT know what to do with me – ‘No worry! No worry! Five more minutes!’)

It’s fitting that I ended as a sobbing, convulsing, snotty mess.  This year was TOO good to me.  It was too much.

5 – [GREAT] EXPECTATIONS

What do I consider my greatest success this year?  Freeing myself from expectations.  (Or wiping them out if they tried to creep in.)

With an open mind, a positive attitude, and zero expectations, your idea of what should happen, how things should be, or what other people should do won’t clog the beauty of what is.

After I learned that lesson in India, I tried to walk into each new experience as open as possible, ready to lean into the unknown, surrendering into the chaotic, beautiful mess of it all.  If I hadn’t, I would have missed out on plucking chickens for the Vietnamese Tet… or getting full-body threaded on a public beach in Cambodia… or standing in the stairwell of a bus with no door, on a 3-hour ride through the mountains of Nepal, as I hung on for dear life.

Granted, those are NOT good examples but they prove my point somehow.  Chaos is where the beauty lives, people! 

Now onto the:

2018: 10 MOST FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

1. What was your favorite place or country?
   • That’s like asking a mother to pick her favorite child; you love each one for different reasons and you love them all the same.
   • That said, I’d probably pick Thailand, Portugal or Morocco.  Thailand and Portugal because they changed my life (Spiritual Awakening & Healing Center and Peace Research & Education Center)…… and Morocco because I couldn’t stop giggling (surf camp).
2. How did you keep it all organized?
   • Two words: Google Sheets.  Easily accessible and easily editable, they saved (and organized) my life, allowing me to track flight information, homestay addresses, transportation schedules, confirmation numbers, visa requirements, finances & expenses, restaurants & attractions, volunteer opps, weather patterns, time differences, exchange rates, and tipping customs offline and on the fly.  Nice and tidy.  Like a well-oiled machine that ran itself.
   • My other saving grace and my TRICK for never getting lost (despite never knowing my surroundings) was Maps.me – an offline map app that doesn’t require internet OR data, so all you need to do is plan ahead, pick out the restaurants & attractions you want to hit, save all points of interest to your handy dandy offline map (including bus & train stations you might use) and voila!  Travel anywhere with confidence!  (Just remember to bring a portable charger because the app drains your battery.)
3. Did you ever feel unsafe?
   • With all the times I wrote about late-night arrivals, couchsurfing with strangers and being dropped off in the middle of nowhere without a working cell phone (or working knowledge of the local language)…… I only felt unsafe TWICE.
   • The first was that potentially-shady hotel room in Marrakesh with unlockable bathroom windows and balcony doors.  Arriving at an unresearched, unvetted hotel, in a new city, at 2 in the morning, is not the best-case scenario.  I’ve seen enough episodes of Bad Trips Abroad; I know what’s up.  Thankfully, appliances and movable furnishings can blockade all entrances and exits in a pinch.
   • The second was clearly the pig farm.  ‘Oh, that old bag!?’  YES.  Living and working on that Scottish pig farm (with hosts that detested their own volunteers and made us feel like second-class citizens) f*cked me up.  That third week of three, my mental health went in the shitter.  I was constantly on edge.  Tiptoeing around the house.  Scared of making mistakes.  Pretending I was invisible and PARANOID to the max.  At one point, I remember one of the other volunteers was going to make herself an egg in THE HOST’S KITCHEN.  (It was forbidden to use the kitchen.)  I started to have a mini panic attack, mumbling that the hosts had only gone to the market.  ‘They’ll be back soon; they’ll catch us; they’re probably listening right now; do you think they have cameras; do you think they’re recording us; did they leave a phone behind; you REALLY shouldn’t touch the kitchen but if you do, can you make me an egg??’
4. Didn’t you get lonely or homesick?
   • Of course I missed my family & friends back home (I missed out on their LIVES for an entire year and I can never get that back), but the only time I was overcome with homesickness was at the very end.  December in Madrid.  The entire city was decorated for Christmas; families were milling about at holiday markets; my Spotify Christmas mix was in full effect; and all the ham in the world couldn’t numb the ache of missing my people.  But, boy did I try.
5. Are you sad that it’s over?
   • Honestly, no.  At no point during the year did I stress out that time was either passing too quickly or running out.  Staying in each spot for 2-6 weeks (settling into local life) created the illusion that time moved slower.  It felt like I was in each country for months.
   • For the most part, I was always more excited for the ride, than sad about the inevitability of that ride ending.  Ain’t no reason to be sad when you’re forever headed to the next, grand adventure tailored for you, by you…… but towards the tail end (Nov and Dec), instead of getting that sinking feeling that the trip of a lifetime was over, I got so effing excited to see my family and friends.
6. Will you keep in touch with people from your travels?
   • Heck yes!  I keep in touch with volunteers, hosts, families and travel friends, and hope to see them again sooooon.
   • I’ve even stayed connected with Tamera (the Peace Research Center in Portugal) as their official proofreader for all external communications…… and the Moroccan surf camp as head (and only member) of Business Development where I’m currently in the middle of closing a partnership deal with one of the biggest international surf companies in the world.  Hell yeah, brah.
7. Did you keep up with the news back home?
   • Sadly, yes.
   • From afar, 2018 didn’t seem like a great year to be an American.  Hopefully, 2019 will bring more hope.
8. Why did you have 3 cell phones?  I don’t get it.
   • My first phone jumped outta my pant pocket and into a toilet the night before I started hiking in Nepal.
   • My second phone jumped outta my jacket pocket and into a water trough padded with pig poops.
   • Ipso facto, presto chango: 2 phones, 2 toilets, gone before their time, no survivors.
9. What did it cost and how much did you budget?
   • FINALLY.  Let’s get to the goods.
   • OK, so, full disclosure: I budgeted $20k for the year, with an additional $5k as an emergency backup fund.  Revolving my entire year around volunteering (in exchange for room & board) was a great decision, as it allowed me to keep costs down for the majority of the year so that I could splurge with abandon (without compromising or stressing about money) for the rest.
   • Final Expense Report Grade: solid A-
   • I came in at $22,600 without ever stressing about money (except for Ireland when my rental car was $650 and my 2-week road trip turned into a 6-week chunk of budget).  I think I did pretty darn good, all things considered.  Even with silly mistakes like buying a Vietnamese visa online with my old passport number ($90), dropping 2 phones in toilets ($300), missing a flight cuz I got caught on a ferry ($400), and (my personal favorite) missing a flight cuz I was too focused on the airport lounge finger food buffet and didn’t realize my plane was leaving ($200).
   • Author’s Note: my personal savings financed 100% of this trip.  No secret sauce, paid partnerships or trust funds.  Maybe next year I’ll figure out how to be an influencer.  But only for Taco Bell…
10. Speaking of next year, what the HECK are you going to do next?

great question

WHICH brings us to the final section of the evening (and million dollar question):

WHAT THE HECK AM I GOING TO DO NEXT?

Step One: RELAX, HENNY

Back in Chicago for the holidays (after 12 months of being on the go go goooooo), all I wanted for Christmas was to see my family & friends, watch RuPaul’s Drag Race, and lie the f*ck down. 

On the agenda: move my body only if absolutely crucial to my survival.

she hasn’t moved in 8 days, should we call someone?

Step Two: REGROUP

OK, not that I don’t LOVE catching up on movies, eating Ben & Jerry’s, and watching real-life games of Operation as my Dad tries to geeeeeeeeeeet a piece ‘a jerky before my Mom hears the crinkle crumple of the beef jerky bag…… I need to figure out what I’m doing with my life.  The holidays are over and my sweatpants are getting tight; this is do or die, people.

help me, I’m bloated

This year has solidified, more than ever, that everyone’s on their own path, searching for something different, looking for what feels right.  What feels right to me is leaning further into the unknown, getting back to the basics of simplicity and a slower pace of life, and surrounding myself with free spirits and open minds.

What feels right to me is signing up for year two of this crazy stupid travelganza. She Gone Girl 2.0. She Long Gone Girl. (A sequel that promises to be half as dramatic but twice the fun. Hopefully with more costumes…)

Responsibility, adulthood, and traditional J-O-Bs will have to wait…… I’ll never be this young (and nimble) again.

You’re stuck with me (and my old-ass, grandma knees) for a little longer.  If you’ll have me.

please have me

i swear i’ll make the posts shorter

Stay tuned, in the coming weeks, for a fully-baked battle plan. I’m crushing the internet, as we speak, to cook up something utterly fantastic.

All I can say is that after the insanity and variety of 2018, 2019 will be more focused on what feels right to ME.  Nothing is off the table, but I’d imagine the main themes will center around finding alternate ways of living, connecting with & working in nature, finding balance and who the heck knows I’m not done researching yet.

Excited to see what 2019 will bring.  Where I’ll end up.  Who I’ll meet.  Who I’ll become. I have no idea what the future holds and that’s A-OK with me.  I actually prefer it.

Thanks for allowing me to share this ride with you.  It means the world to me that you’re here.

cuz i love showing you things

like how to do magic tricks in full snorkel gear

and how to look like you’re scream-crying

Love Forever & Always,

She Gone Girl

But She Here Now

But She Gone Soon