Q u o t e o f t h e d a y: “Do it now. Sometimes later, becomes never.” – Anonymous
What’s happening?
Not much to be honest, in the blogging department that is. Writing has become a scene from the movie Holes; no matter how much I dig, nothing turns up. *Yes, I secretly love this movie and I’m not afraid to reference it.
I wouldn’t necessarily say I procrastinate, in fact, in general I meet deadlines with work, am regimented in my personal life and pretty good at keeping tabs with friends and family at home. But the 6-month mark hit…insert Dun Dun Dun scary movie sound effect…and I haven’t written a blog since month four.
Everyone on Remote Year blogs for something. Whether the purpose is tips for the newbies about to embark on RY, a journal as a safe keep for memories, a traveler’s best guide to unlocking a city’s secrets or like me – for their own good. I enjoy writing, I like to know there are some readers out there but interest in my content isn’t what drives me to do it. So, what happens when you’ve got nothing written down on paper? You accept the fact that you are in a mid-RY crisis. That’s right, I said it. We reached the end of month 6 and the panic has hit the ground running.
So now I’ve got 99 problems and the blog is only one.
Yep. All things start piling up in my brain as they usually do. Find one thing wrong and it seems there are a million things wrong. It’s not just that I haven’t written my blog, but there are people in my Kaizen family that I haven’t had lunch with yet. I spend so much time and money on side trips, cities have escaped me without having even seen their most touristy attractions. I’ve started to spend more nights working from home than in the workspace, I’ve used delivery food service instead of heading out to try new things and I’ve completely stopped with my running and gym schedule. I know I’ve made it through my 25th year, but somehow this crisis seems worse.
It’s tough on Remote Year. I know that sounds like a joke to most of you, but as glorious as Instagram makes our lives look – the behind the scenes can at times look like a reality TV show gone wrong.
This is the true story, of 50 strangers, picked to live in a new country and have their lives uprooted from them – no face time with work, mom’s pasta Sundays are long gone, friend’s engagement party invite responses are “not attending” and time starts slipping away. Time starts going by too fast and things start getting real.
Yes, our problems may be different than a normal day at home, such as missing a planned and paid for cultural event because the time difference has you shrugging with the other 10 remotes left in the work space at 3 am. Or realizing that just because we can travel to a million places doesn’t mean that our funds support it. In month seven you are still trying to prove that Remote Year isn’t all play and no work and with the, at minimum, 13-hour difference for most, 7/11 take away dinners seem to be the most you get out of the evenings.
You better lose yourself in the music, the moment. You own it, you better never let it go.
Thank you, Eminem, for stating the obvious. But the biggest fear of the mid-RY crisis by far, is the fact that the year is slipping away. Now into month 7, realizing I’m nearly four blogs behind, I’m also beginning to think of all the things I told myself I had plenty of time to do. It’s so easy to say, well I’ve got all year. Well that year is past the half way point, and I don’t want to look back come month 12 saying what if I just had…
The Deets.
I can count on one hand at least, the things that I’d do if I knew it was month 11. That said, I’m struggling to tackle them in month seven, even aware of that. Spending time with new people in the group is always a priority, however I’m deathly afraid of the final days coming and not having my closest friends in the same city. There poses one balancing challenge. Looking back at my time spent in the months I’ve been away, is work what I see myself doing the most of? There poses another challenge. Six months without romance and dating, which once seemed like the obvious thing to do on a Remote Year, is starting to feel a bit lonely and wasted. Another challenge. No time to write, or make time for fitness and the regimented things that make you happy, because spending time doing RY things and meeting up with RY people doesn’t feel limitless anymore. Another one.
So what do you do when you love a song but you just make up all the lyrics because it's too fast and there are too many words to remember?
Fake it until you make it. About a week ago I told Michael, who leads our group blogging and “outside” work creative project meetings, that I figured I’d give up since I’m already too far behind. Attempting to write about Italy felt so far gone, talking about Vietnam would make me miss it too much (easily one of my favorite months) and Chiang Mai was 5 weeks of madness including a 10-day trip to china that might need two blog entries.
But every day I’m hustling. I thought back to a time in Split where both of us were sitting on a rock by the water, and I was the one providing blogging advice. Well the tables have turned and the kid has completely crushed his goals with continuing to blog, no seriously, check his out. So instead of disappointing him and realistically myself, I decided to drop it like it’s hot and write about how hard it is not writing and the panic of passing the halfway point. I do plan to catch you all up eventually, and this blog was a start to the end of my writer’s block. But until then, please support me as I tread water through this rough mid-RY crisis.
Mic drop.
