Carefree Colorado: Part 1 – A Walk in a Park
Today was the first day in almost 4 weeks that I felt back in my happy place. A simple walk through a neighbor took me back to normalcy.
It’s probably not what you think… It’s been about 2 months on the road now, and I imagine most people would think I’m starting to get bored, lonely, and missing home. That’s not the case… well, it sort of is, but as a result of something else.
That something else was the craziness my job transformed into while I filled in for a new hire before they started. I’ve never worked so much in my life… consistent 12-15 hour days and weekends. It was exciting in a way. There was so much work to do, it was challenging and new, and I love challenges! It was also motivating because I could envision how amazing the end product would be, and I could see every step we needed to get there.
Passion makes all the difference
During those late nights and early mornings, I realized how much I loved my job. I’ve never felt that type of shared energy before. The type of energy where everyone in your company is working so hard to accomplish the same thing. Everyone just as passionate as you, everyone wanting to see the company and mission succeed.
Working at a huge company previously, I never felt that. I met some people along the way who had that passion, but they were the minority. The majority were so downtrodden, uninspired, and miserable. I think this is a common theme at almost every large company today.
That doesn’t exist at my current company. There’s a fraction of the employees, but they’re all hot spots. All so passionate, thoughtful, and optimistic. I like to think I’m at least 2 of those 3 things, and it feels sooo good to be amongst like minded people. It’s sort of like finding your clique of friends, except career related. It’s like we’re all on this Global level project that will add so much goodness into the world.
The burnout
Back to my point…. My life was sleep, eat, work for almost a month. It was the first time I experienced trouble turning off my work mind. Usually I’m adept at separating my work and personal life, but this time, I wanted to work non-stop… until I didnt.
That 4th week had started to wear on me. I could tell that my constantly elevated adrenaline and cortisol levels were starting to come down and my body was showing signs of burnout. It started getting a little harder to wake up in the mornings, and my gym motivation started to diminish.
Side note: I think deep down, every person has an innate need to do something good for the world and humankind. It may be directed in completely different ways, or sometimes even misguided – but generally it’s an underlying why behind what people do.
I despise when I lose motivation to work out. It motivates me to get more consistent, because I don’t like to see that I’ve lost progress.
Luckily, today I’ve finally felt some relief from the heavy burden I’ve felt these past few weeks. A burden I was happy to hold, but dang was I getting fatigued! I know it wasn’t just me, the team was feeling it too.
Getting back to “normal”
Today, I worked a normal 8 hour day. Today, I was able to take a lunch walk and breathe. Today, I had motivation to move my body and went on a walk after work along a shallow creek that parallels a beautiful neighborhood.
On the walk out, I took the path along the shallow creek. I walked down every little side path to the water’s edge, looking for trout and trying to find bigger ones each time. After crossing a street, the path continued along behind a row of houses. The backs of the houses were gorgeous – full of enormous floor-to-ceiling windows that opened up to cozy patios.
Most houses had some type of greenery in the back – trees, shrubs, and flowers; overhead awnings, tables and chairs. It’s nothing like the backyards you see in Virginia Beach, which are normally just open fields of grass. There aren’t many big, beautiful trees! Now I sort of understand Anne Shirley‘s obsession with trees in her House of Dreams.
On the way back in, I took the path through the neighborhoods to see the fronts of the houses. I’ve always enjoyed looking at houses, both inside and out, because I love architecture. Likely from hours and hours of designing houses in Sims back in the day.
A walk to normalcy
When I was just about done with my walk, I passed by a large, open field where soccer practice was taking place. I saw a few parents proudly watching their children run drills. In that moment, I felt a sense of being in an alien world.
Since I’ve been on the road so long, my life is far from normal. I don’t interact with families and my routine is atypical. Seeing such a commonplace scene – a proud parent watching their children play soccer – made me feel like I didn’t belong in that moment.
I tried to imagine myself as one of the parents and what it would be like. Suddenly I felt a sense of pride for my imaginative daughter, because I know she’d be crushing it.
Remembering Your Self
When I was on my road trip last year, I noticed a change in my personality that lasted a little while even after getting home.
For most of my life I’ve considered myself shy, especially in childhood and adolescence. I hated it. I always felt so awkward, and unsure of myself. Being in the spotlight was uncomfortable. Having to talk to people I didn’t know, or even worse, talk in front of people was the worst.
In middle school and early highschool people thought I was weird or stuck up because I was SO quiet. That wasn’t the case,.. okay, I probably was weird. BUT it was really just because I had a fear of speaking. I really was painfully shy.. in social settings I had so much anxiety about speaking.
In college I postponed my public speaking class until my very last semester because I was so terrified of taking it. My way of getting through it was practicing my speeches a million times so I remembered every word, and they ended up going very well!
Time to reflect
Another realization I had as a child, is that my mind loves to think, ponder deep thoughts, and I have a lot to say at times! Being both shy and full of thoughts is a terrible combination. Having so many ideas in your head but no way of communicating them in person.
It’s like having this burning energy in your chest making you want to scream whatever is on your mind, but when you try nothing comes out. Your attempts are totally futile and you’re left with that burning feeling in your chest – frustrated and defeated.
When I got my first real job, I knew I had to work through these fears to be successful. At first I just pushed through, meaning I would force myself to speak up in meetings even though it was SO uncomfortable for me. I knew I had good ideas and valuable things to say, and my knowitall self sometimes couldn’t contain my urge to stay silent.
Working through the fear
Eventually I got much more comfortable with it, and maybe even pretty good. I’ve done several presentations in front of high level leaders, in front of large groups of people in various settings. I started practicing less and less, and felt more confident.
Even though I felt a gradual sense of growing confidence in my work life, I still felt like that quiet, shy girl in my personal life. In social settings I needed alcohol to relax and interact with people normally. I’m not saying I had an addiction but I definitely needed alcohol to loosen-up and not be an awkward weirdo in social settings.
When I ventured off on my solo roadtrip, I stayed at several hostels along the way – Nashville, New Orleans, Austin, Albuquerque, and Phoenix. In each of those places, I almost immediately made a genuine friend. It was a strange feeling for me, because I never thought of myself as someone who made friends easily. I was too closed-off and shy in most settings, unless of course I had a few drinks, and then I loved everyone .
I realized that for some reason, being alone while traveling, I felt more like myself than ever before. If I did or said something embarrassing, I thought, who cares I’ll never see these people again! It allowed me, in a way, to find my true self again. And turns out, when I can relax and not care what people think, I’m more outgoing, confident, happy, friendly, and fun!
Being myself
If you’re one of those naturally open and carefree people – first, hats off to you. Second, you probably can’t relate to my story. I didn’t learn how to be myself growing up, and I’ve never been comfortable enough in my own skin to just let loose!
Add on years of Catholic school where the girls are extremely judgmental and catty, they teach you everything is a sin, and you learn to hide your true-self to get by. You think maybe there’s something wrong with you, and you change yourself and build up walls so no one can actually get to know you.
I’ve concluded that one major goal in life is to pull back all of those layers and falsehoods put on during adolescence. The gold standard is to get back to who you were before the fear of judgment of society set in.
Over these past few months, I’ve started to notice my layers of protection melting away. I’m becoming a softer, less defensive and judgmental person. I judge others and myself less. I realized I used to have unreasonably high standards for other people, and myself. This just leads to disappointment and frustration. It’s easier for me to communicate my unfiltered thoughts and feelings to people.
It’s easier to connect with people, period. Without all of the anxiety filled thoughts, you can just be. I cry more now, over small things like seeing a beautiful sunset, and I realized that crying does not mean you’re weak. It actually feels good to feel. You don’t realize how closed off you once were until you start feeling again.
Fast Forward to Present Day
Since my work life started to settle back to normal, I’ve had more opportunities to get out and about. I’m feeling more social again, which looks much different now than it did a short while ago when I was still living in Virginia Beach. Now, being social for me looks like going to a brewery, pub, or restaurant, sitting at the bar, and making friends with whoever is next to me.
After 2 months on the road, I finally got back to that feeling of carefree confidence. Within the past two weeks I’ve met almost a dozen people. All of which I’ve had amazing conversations with to the point of feeling like I’ve known them forever!
I never imagined I would have the ability to make friends with any random person I happenstance sat next to. A few years ago, I would have never walked into an unknown bar alone. If I did, I would have asked for a table so I didn’t have to interact with anyone.
Extroverted introvert
Now it’s quite the opposite – I get bummed out if a restaurant doesn’t have a bar area, or if there’s no one to sit next to! I look forward to the random conversations with random people, because you learn and experience amazing things!
I’ve said before I don’t believe in coincidences, and the more I talk to new people, the more I believe that. The more I talk, the more I realize how interconnected everyone is. It’s just a matter of time that in conversation, some common thread is discovered.
I’ve realized the longer I’ve been on my own, the more myself I am. The more happy, confident, and carefree I feel. I’m in no rush to end my travels, but I will also be looking forward to when I get back to normal life because I know it will be so different, because I’m already different.
Bottom line, these couple months on the road have been so healing for me in ways I could never have imagined.
Click here to view my part 2 of Colorado – which is actually about Colorado lol.
We travel because we need to, because distance and difference are the secret tonic to creativity. When we get home, home is still the same, but something in our minds has changed, and that changes everything.
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