While I don't see myself writing my adventures in chronological order, I feel it's only appropriate to start at the beginning on how I ended up where I am. Besides, the beginning is generally the best part of any story. It's like the start of a book where the protagonist's life suddenly changes because of a decision or a key event. Life itself isn't that much different. It may not be as dramatic or as clear as to why you turned left instead of right at the fork in the road, but if you think about it, you can always pinpoint the catalyst for your decision to take a different path.
My catalyst was a mate's wedding.
Back in 2010, a mate from University informed me that he was engaged to be married to an American in Boston in June 2011. I, along with another mate, started to plan a trip around the West Coast of the US before we headed to Boston for the wedding.
(Side note: I started 3 degrees and didn't finish any of them. I had a great time at University, but that's another story for another time.)
Growing up, I moved around a lot. We moved towns every 4-5 years because of my father's job. As an adult, I moved cities on average every two years as I tried to figure out what I wanted to do or was looking for work (thanks, 2009 financial crisis!).
However, up until this point, I had never been overseas. I didn't even have a passport. The most I had travelled up was to NSW with my family as a kid and to Sydney with some friends as an adult. Aside from that, I was a Queensland-only kinda gal, and I just worked, moved towns, worked, moved cities, worked; you get the idea.
While I was interested in travelling, I never really had the money to do it. I was still trying to figure out what I wanted to actually do with my life. Throw in society's expectations of what I should be doing (which I had no interest in) travelling was very low on the list.
Let's be clear about something. I don't like being boxed or labelled according to what society sets for now and the rest of my life. I believe that we are constantly growing, learning, and discovering new things about ourselves. While something may be attractive now, it doesn't mean I want to do it forever or will enjoy it in the future. And if people seemed to think they knew exactly what I would do or had clear expectations of my career or life, I would do a U-turn and walk in the other direction. (I was voted by my high school classmates as most likely to end up teaching back at my high school when I graduated. As you can probably guess, that didn't happen).
If people truly knew me, they would know I had big ideas, was open to trying anything new, was a risk-taker and was a bit unpredictable.
While I was planning my first trip overseas, I had another thought. What if I flew 'across the pond' to London and just stayed there? My mum was British, so I could get a British passport, and I had always talked about going to the UK to live for a bit. Plus, some friends at the time were already there.
This felt like a no-brainer.
The thing about me is if I say I am going to do something, then there is a 99.999999999% chance I am going to do it. While I sometimes don't always think about the consequences of my choices, I live by the rule of 'what if it works out' and not 'what if it doesn't work out'. And if it doesn't work out, then I know it wasn't for me. I'm not sitting there thinking, what if I had taken that chance when I had it?
So, nine months from getting on that plane, I informed my mother of my decision. Thankfully (or scarily, depending on how you look at it), my mother knew I had itchy feet. While some thought it looked like I had finally settled, she knew I would make a move. Maybe not to the other side of the world move, but she knew something was afoot. With the 100 questions now set from my mother of things I had to do/consider/answer/think about, etc. I began to pack up my life and move, for I had lost count of the time.
Within three months, I had moved out of my two-bedroom apartment and moved in with my brother and his partner. I saved $10,000 (as agreed with my mother. She wouldn't let me go without it). I had a countdown on when I could resign from my job and organised for both of my passports. I spent most evenings researching how to set myself up in the UK. You would be surprised by some of the things you can and can't do when trying to move to another country. (I might talk about this in a future blog) For those who have worked with me as a project manager, my organisation/planning will be unsurprising.
But in between all this, I was also planning my adventure through America with my mate, my first trip overseas.
And this is really where the adventure really begins.
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