A Beautiful Uncertainty: The beginning of Adventure

Everyone has asked, what makes you up, and move across the world? And how do you even do that? It’s a lot. And it takes a lot. 

I’ll start from the top and try to keep this story short and sweet. But there’s a lot to be said about a venture like this. Bradley and I vacationed to Thailand together in the fall of 2019. It was my first world trip experience, and a visit back to a place Bradley called home for a short time. Not only did I fall more in love with Bradley, I fell in love with Thailand too. I knew in a moment, as we were having dinner at this adorable restaurant in Chiang Mai, that I could live there. And I could definitely live there with Bradley. We had been there only a few days. And I just knew. I felt it. I even brought it up at dinner, not sure where that bravery was even coming from, and asked this man that I was just beginning to let in, if he would live there again. With me. And he said he would. Out on that patio in Chiang Mai I realized, that’s what I wanted more than anything. That’s where the seed was planted and where it all really started. 

At the time we were both working as Area Managers for an online pet products supplier, in the warehouse in Dallas. We were both really focused on trying to build a career at the time. We were trying to grow up, rebuild, find our way, and chase “the dream.” That respectable salary and title, crush the glass ceiling, buy the house, buy the car, dream. And when it came down to it, we were both miserable. Depressed and overworked. Anxious to the point of sickness. Our jobs were incredibly demanding. Of the mind, body, and the soul. It didn’t feel right being here. Doing this. We were both still young, in love, seeking answers and experiences, and just crazy enough to give it all up to follow our dreams.

We originally planned to move to Thailand by April 2021. We were grinding away at work and saving. All was looking great! We came back home from a birthday trip to Hawaii in March of 2020 and the whole world changed. A global pandemic. We were devastated for many reasons, of course. Most of all, our dream was now completely up in the air. Heartbroken but hopeful, we continued to save. We moved in together and we made the most of 2020 in our home, dancing it out and making our own oasis. We did our best to escape the madness of the world and the constant waves of every emotion and anxiety you could think of. It was a very hard year and change…and somehow, we survived and came out on top.  

After the start of 2021, things started seeming more and more hopeful. I got an amazing job as an Operations Manager for one of the “Big 4” in distribution and fulfillment and a more well deserved salary. As soon as we heard Thailand had plans to reopen to tourists we decided this was it. We had to take the chance and do it. We sat down and tallied up all the money we had to our names. We had enough at the time to live off of comfortably for a couple years, without working, in Thailand. Hell yes. The Dollar to Baht conversion was incredibly in our favor. As crazy as we felt, we couldn’t not do this. So we set the date. November 2nd, we would fly out. Now…we had to break the news to our friends and family. 

This is a time in this story where I would like to express extreme gratitude to our loved ones. Our support system. Every person we told was elated for us. Not one person showed any judgement or doubt in our choice. Tears were had, of course, and concerns expressed and questions asked. But every person in our life genuinely supported our dream. And in the most beautiful ways. Bradley and I married in June and the love poured in! We became one and our loved ones started donating for the cause. Our friends and family called dibs on our things to remember us by and further funded our dream. This entire stressful, emotional, and exciting start to our adventure has been a truly beautiful experience because of the support and love from our friends and family. They have all found this magical way to make it super hard but also super easy to be brave and leave. To actually do this. Thank you, from the depths of my spirit. 

So we lucked out. We had ALL the support and then some. After that, we worked through the process cautiously and meticulously. This is a massive venture and after announcing the big move, we had about 3 ½ months to prepare. Yowza. This needed to be broken down into stages. Bradley grabbed a notebook and we made a list of all our things to sell, to-do’s, and started planning our garage sales. We purged through the house starting with the obvious – clothing. And slowly over the next few weeks, we separated things we held precious that were worth shipping over, things to our friends and family, things we would donate, things we would sell, and the things we would carry on our backs.

We decided to host two separate garage sales and they would be two days each. It took every bit of that time and more to let go of our belongings, but we were successful! We made more money on some things than we expected and next to nothing on things that were worth more. It was an incredibly humbling experience to sell and give away all our things. I learned more about myself, people, and my loved ones than I ever expected to. We also threw away a LOT. And we ended up keeping an extra bin of things that we had to use until the last minute to live off of. Mostly kitchen utensils and towels, things like that. We sold both of our cars. I actually made a bit of money off of my car and Bradley’s mom offered to buy his car from us and we would be able to use it until the very end. The best possible outcomes came through for us.

By far the most challenging and heart wrenching part of this entire venture was the business of rehoming our furbabies. Actually, if I tell this story correctly, this was the first subject we discussed when we decided to start saving after our trip in 2019. I thought a lot about this, and constantly. They were, and are, my closest things I’ve had to children. We weren’t really sure what to do at first but knew we would figure it out. At the time of our dreams inception we worked for a place that is for pet lovers and employed hundreds of pet lovers. And we have some really amazing people in our life. Aside from the action of rehoming our babies, was the moral question of rehoming them. It was….and still is some days, a strife. About two years of preparation, research, and going back and forth in my brain and my heart…and it’s still one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made.

Remember that shout out to friends and family? These folks here…they helped keep pieces of my heart together by offering not just their love, but their homes, and their lives to my furbabies. My sister and her family took Rhiannon and June, Bradley’s sister took Genie, and some of our best friends in the whole world took my sweet Sadie Bear. Again, the BEST possible outcome. I am still bewildered at how we could deserve this kind of favor and love. Even though we decided to rehome our furbabies, they are in the family. Still loved by familiar faces and just a video chat away. Letting them go still broke me. I wasn’t prepared for that either. I still lost a whole piece of myself. 

Once the girls were gone, we muscled through getting out of the house and moved in with Bradley’s parents for our final 3 weeks in Texas. The farewell tour had begun and we were constantly busy. If it were not for the many checklists made in that notebook and calendar reminders, our brains would be mush and we would not have completed all our tasks. There’s so much more that goes into moving across the world than you think when you first start seriously considering doing something like this. One thing I know for sure is I have already learned a lot more than I expected. 

I was fully aware that this huge life event would teach me things. I just didn’t know it would teach me this much, this fast, before we even set foot on Thai soil. I wasn’t prepared for the inner turmoil I had due to the conditioning I grew up with. The same influences most people grow up with but you never realize they weren’t your original ideas or dreams or thoughts in the first place. I’ve learned a lot about “things.” And what real value is and what I actually “need.” I’ve read about the poverty mentality and it is a real state of mind. I grew up very poor. And as an adult, I lived paycheck to paycheck until several months after my first big promotion and had paid off a lot of my debt from a previous marriage. I’ve tasted both poverty and success in my short life. But even still, I had to fight a lot of emotions and inner turmoil over things. Stuff. I placed emotional attachment to inanimate objects that didn’t really bring me joy. Just memories or quick comfort. Hell, I even did this with food! You start noticing these things little by little as you rid your life of everything that isn’t essential or dear. I even think we do this with people. Afraid to be without, for whatever reason. It’s been incredibly eye opening. I am willingly unemployed and homeless, living incredibly minimally, and I am still ignoring all the random urges to buy shit I definitely don’t need now, but didn’t even really need in the first place. But in this transition period of my life, I have found a lot of peace in not having so much. Only having to worry about what I can carry. I have yet to miss anything I have given up, with the exception of our furbabies.

Five days out from landing we have finished all the bureaucratic tasks and hurdles, we have rid ourselves of almost all our belongings, and we have said farewell to all our loved ones. The only anxiety I feel now is the good kind. The kind you get as a kid when you discover something new and incredible. I feel freedom and peace. And most importantly, I feel extreme gratitude. That I get to do this with the greatest love I’ve ever known by my side. And together we get to go discover ourselves and this beautiful world. Our goals are currently open ended. We have some general ideas of what we would like to do and where we would like to go, but we plan to let life lead us. It is such a beautiful uncertainty. 

I hope my words ignite fire and passion. I hope they inspire those who read it and I hope you continue to read and follow our journey as we share this amazing chapter of our lives with the world. Please feel free to reach out directly for any questions, comments, or requests!