Nomad: lost in the world

In her latest stand-up special, “Relatable” (which even though is not necessarily her best work, it will still take you to some real places), Ellen DeGeneres says something incredibly woke, which is that everyone should be required to wait tables at least once in their life to better understand things.

I believe that getting lost on purpose is something you have to do at least once in your life to better understand yourself.

I’ve done both and much more (or much less, depending on how you approach it) and regret nothing.

 

Looking back, my path has been exactly what I had asked for: a beautiful mess of turning points and “Under construction” traffic signs. For most of the way, I’ve worn blindfolds because I didn’t know better – I used to think that youth could be preserved longer if you didn’t overstretch your mind or your body, if you never drank, smoked or took any major risks.

So, for many years, I haven’t really lived, until some day something came over me and just like that, a decision was made: a few years of intense living were going to make up for all that lost time.

I was going to press “Reset”, forget about my cozy middle-class existence and start my life over as a low class citizen with little to no money, in a country I had done zero research on, surrounded by immigrants who had run away from real problems and who didn’t have to pretend they liked me.

Few people actually understood my decision. Most of them called me a coward (unfortunately, not to my face though) and that a real test of courage would have been to stay and fight the real battle – my country’s, others said I must be out of my mind, leaving a spacious apartment I didn’t have to work a day in my life to pay for, because my grandparents have already done that, and the old family house at the countryside I have been granted just by being my father’s daughter, a car that my parents’ old time friends have offered me just because they have known me since I was a toddler and have always considered me as the daughter they never had and, of course, the good china and Zepter pots my mother has been putting aside for me since I was ten.

But I stood by it then and I’m pretty sure I will continue to stand by it for as long as I live. I knew I have had too easy, I needed to make it hard as hell.

Without thinking, I said “Yes” to the first job offer I got. I figured it didn’t even matter what I was going to do, as long as it was going to teach me something I didn’t know about myself.

Two weeks and a signed contract later, I was leaving my perfectly fitting mattress, the hundreds of hybernating dresses and bags and shoes in my closet, saying “good-bye” to every single one of the stains on my room walls, pulling a small trolley and taking one more look around the house knowing that nothing would ever be the same once I’d step out the door.

But I did, regardless. The new story had already begun to write itself down. It was too late to interrupt it.

Some of the first things I learned when I arrived in London were that my skills, qualifications and degrees were absolutely useless, all the years of training and studying didn’t have any value here. In other words, I didn’t have anything they wanted.

In order to get anywhere near law practise, I would have had to take additional courses (which I wouldn’t have minded at all, except I had already come to the conclusion that I didn’t care so much about law after all).

So I improvised something on the spot and had to keep improvising for a while, develop new skills and make the best out of every situation.

  

But today, whenever I take a look at my CV, it’s as if the lives of two different people have been mixed up in there. It doesn’t make any sense, it’s messy, first it’s boring but then it gets interesting, has some great anecdotes to it and a little bit of shame, frustration and sweat, there is courage but more than anything, there’s growth.

It took me some time, but I’ve never been more proud of what I have become and wouldn’t have had it any other way.

I wish I would never let go of this feeling.

I’m back!

To be continued,

Green Eyed Kisses,