After 28 plane rides, 8 road trips, 4 boat rides, 1 electric bike and countless tuk-tuks, I land safely back in San Francisco to begin “normal” life again. And as all of you can attest to, life in America is anything but normal. Everything seems slightly out of sorts - I can’t figure out why everyone is so busy or why there is so much packaging on all of my food when I go to the supermarket or how everything is so clean and tidy and the air is crystal clear, yet we shower everyday? But I am sure in just a few weeks time, this will all seem normal to me. But hopefully driving a car won’t seem normal, I’m buying an electric scooter. Or waking up, rolling over and grabbing my blackberry will never seem normal again. And my new job will prove to be as inspiring and exciting and un-normal as the last months have been – I’m counting on it. And if not, well, I’ll just keep searching until I find something that is...and I will never lose gratitude for having that "choice."
Thanks again for coming on this journey with me, many of you have asked for more photos so here you go.
After a decade of work, I have decided to take a career break. I need a respite, a breather, time to explore shelved ideas ... the concept started out as "something" I was pulled to, a blurry idea off in the future to happen "someday.” The gravity increased over the last few years, evolving into a desire for volunteering, travel in Asia and yoga. The vision was a contradiction to my daily routine – 12 hour work days filled with 50 or more conversations, thousands of miles on planes (spent marching along with my fellow soldiers armed with our headsets, pda’s, carry-on luggage and jetlag), intertwined with “alt-tab” every 120 seconds or an unbreakable blackberry addiction anytime I decided to leave the laptop.
And so I negotiated my departure, sublet my house, put together a rough itinerary and will use this writing as a compass to guide my exploration…