No vibes, just thoughts

Hola from San Sebastián

As I sip my post-yoga cappuccino, it’s clear that I have built a good life, but I do not feel fulfilled. This past week I have been with my husband in Marseille, Toulouse, and now San Sebastián, reading 12 Trips in 12 Months by Jen Ruiz, eating pintxos, drinking wine, having one of those little French sandwiches with butter, meat, cheese, and lettuce, realizing I have been coasting and not actively building a life that could fulfill me. Do not get me wrong, I am super fortunate to have found the love of my life and he loves me back, as well as an amazing group of friends and a network that spans from sea to shining sea and then to Europe. I feel my relationship with my family has never been better and my health is finally on the up and up, but I have no passions outside of traveling, planning travel, talking about travel and finding great travel products.

While painting brings me joy, I am mentally fried from helping people troubleshoot simple problems and telling them the software does not do what they hope. There is a sense of envy I have of some colleagues who have the passion for the work, but to me, it’s a good job that offers good benefits, gives me a decent paycheck, and lets me work from home with “unlimited” PTO (it is never truly unlimited unless you possess some insane skill a company desperately needs, then you could take off 100+ days a year like one of my former teammates). These people are so eager to give, give, give to the work, and they are rewarded. But I just do not have that dog in me, and I wish I did. I do enjoy helping others and getting them back to what they should be doing.

So what do we do with these feelings?

I have been pondering the idea of taking an Instagram account I have that accumulated 32k followers and rebranding it to a “work from anywhere / 35+ travel / reviews of gadgets, bags, hotels / and itineraries” account to pair with my Substack (which I know I have neglected). The IG account is an old meme page from when I lived in Atlanta and I kept control of it because I thought I would move back. Well, Los Angeles rocks and we will be staying. Even if we were to move, the pull to take advantage of my EU citizenship has never been stronger thanks to an orange demon and his army of soulless monsters.

The only backlash I can sense is people who followed for memes may put the two together and realize I was the meme maker all along and feel some sort of anger and unfollow. Or, people in Atlanta will just unfollow because why would they follow this 35+ white lady talking about how the TropicFeel Nest bag is ideal for working on the road. But with that many followers, others may think it’s legit and follow. I also have a sense I will abandon everything again, since I haven’t posted here in over a year and am getting tired of letting other peoples options dictate what I do with my time.

I don’t know. I’ve talked about it with some friends and everyone says go for it, but I worry I will abandon it if things do not pan out. The dream would be to create UGC for hotels like Mama Shelter and Social Hub, or connecting other 30+ child-free people together in the form of trips or meetups. I have always started blogs and abandoned them I just feel I am wasting my life trying to explain to other adults why emails won’t render in Outlook, because that is just how Outlook works.

Anyway, I am going to head into town and eat a risotto while sipping wine and Coke.