Hi everyone, I’m back. It feels weird to say that. There’s a severe shortage of confetti and champagne in this announcement. Writing this already feels less anti-climatic than I imagined. And the bar in my imagination was already pretty low.
Where Did I Go?
No where! That’s pretty much the entire problem. In one moment, I was a traveling teacher. I worked and on every break, my husband and I would travel somewhere with our son. It was bliss, man. I had life all figured out! So much so that I started telling other people how to live their lives.
And then?
I don’t know, kind of everything at once to be honest. COVID. Death in my family. A missed miscarriage. Burn out. Resentment. New things to worry about as a parent. I don’t share anything regarding the private details of my family member’s lives. However, you’ve all lived for a few years now, so you can only imagine the breadth of things that can happen in life. My life became about surviving…just surviving.
Every day for about a year there was some new bullshit catastrophe happening in my life in addition to those listed above. Our ceiling caving in. A plethora of illnesses. It felt for a very long time like my life was just destined to go down hill…forever.
But it’s been a while since all of that.
I’m here. My family is here. My husband and son are here. We’re happy, and healthy and together.
I used to think the world would stop turning if I ever had to stop traveling. The universe put me in check and my perspective has changed and matured. There are a lot worse things that can happen. Health, a home, love, and some money are all that anyone really needs. Everything else is extra.
Thank you to all of my travel blogging friends and community that has reached out, kept in touch, wrote nice things to me on my socials, and supported me during a really rough time. It’s meant more than you can ever imagine.
Imposter Syndrome and Weirdos:
When the pandemic hit, I rounded out my blog — finishing posts about everywhere I had ever been. It was an enormous task, but I finished it.
And then…crickets.
I couldn’t write about traveling any more…because I wasn’t traveling. Even when the world began to open up, air travel wasn’t an option for us for many reasons. (Did you know toddlers hate flying?) We did a lot of road trips, which I’m really grateful for. But still…I didn’t have the drive to write about anything I was seeing or doing. My fierce, burning, impregnable love for travel writing became…meh.
I still loved writing, though. I had been working on a novel, Bloodlust Frontera, for about seven years. I finished it (all 800 pages) over the course of two years with the world’s best editor and my life coach. (And of course my husband and family too!) I started an online magazine called Tawk of New Yawk and that took off pretty quickly!
And then…
I suffered a lot of imposter syndrome. I would feel proud about something I wrote, like insanely proud…and happy! But then I would read the work of other new writers — you know the one’s whose careers just take off from the jump. I read the work of other journalists and lifestyle writers. I saw how witty and confident they were, at least on Twitter. And I battled myself, my insecurities, and my doubts every single long day.
Nobody prepares you for when you put your writing out into the world. My community was ceaselessly supportive. Even some strangers and critics were nice or offered good feedback.
But if you’re going to put yourself out there, you’d better have a thick skin. Thankfully, ten years of teaching high school in a public city school prepared me for that.
Some people would offer sharp criticism to my articles that were online. But that’s OK…we don’t all have to agree and we don’t all have to like the way I write. It’s really OK, the world is going to keep turning if people hate my writing. I mean, I hate other people’s writing (but that doesn’t mean they should stop.)
But then there’s people who take it too far. Stalkers. Trolls. Some rather innocuous things I wrote (my favorite coffee place for instance) sent some fringe lunatics (mostly men) foaming at the mouth at me.
This country has a bigger issue with men hating women than it would care to admit, but I digress. People’s words can’t hurt you unless you let them. Ignore, delete, block, repeat. I don’t get paid enough to address that degree of mental illness.
Identity Crisis:
Until recently, like really recently I had a lot of identity crisis about writing. Am I a novelist if I wrote a novel but it’s not published yet? Do I like writing poems? Should I transition from teaching to writing coach? Am I a business owner? Do I want to go back to school and become an academic? Do I want to be a history writer…I love history! Oooh maybe I should write plays! Wait — why stop there, maybe I should direct plays! Maybe I should try stand up comedy! Maybe I should write a sitcom! Maybe…I should jump back into travel writing…
I’m going to do all of it. Life’s too short. I have some ideas on how to better make my projects feel more manageable, but if you have any other ideas let me know. If any big travel writing outlets want my opinion, give your girl a call. (Me = your girl.)
The Future of Wandering Why:
I’m going to try to write one post a month. I’m going to try to go all “travel writer” and come up with cool angles. I can’t promise I won’t revert to listacles when I write about New York City — but that’s OK too. Let me know if there’s anything you’d like me to cover — DM me on Instagram!
Thanks for your patience, everyone. It feels good to be back.
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