My Leave of Absence

Hello again friends

It’s been a while since I’ve touched this site, coming up on 2 years to be exact. To be honest, a lot in my life has changed since November 2023. I love traveling and although that hasn’t changed, turning my passion into a career was probably the worst thing I personally could have done for myself. This fire to get up at 3am for a 15 hour travel day went away because that’s my weekly. I’ve spent a lot of these past 2 years struggling with my mental health to figure out how to regain my fuel. How to celebrate my accomplishments and get it out of my head that I’m not finished yet. 

Aviation drew me in because of the experiences I felt I never got growing up. I was struggling to live in a world I was unfamiliar with, surrounded by people I forced connections with. No one really speaks on mental health in aviation. How traveling fills these holes you always plugged before. How plane hopping satisfies that feeling of escaping a reality you’re blind to. I love this aviation world I’ve built for myself, but I would be remiss if I didn’t admit to succumbing to the dark side of it. When long duty days with minimum rest let your mind wander to places it hasn’t been allowed in a while. When life picks up and I feel this sadness that I can’t go anywhere, that my responsibilities lie at home.

I’ve worked really hard to get to where I’m at and I let myself have the 2 years I needed to figure it out. However, it’s time to grind again. So while my month to month doesn’t look like Greece, Spain, Thailand, or anywhere else I’d like to go, they consist of hours in textbooks and serving drinks on a plane. Because while I’ll always advocate for the absent time of discovering oneself through experience, I also encourage you to create a future that sets you up for balance and success, whatever that may look like for you. I love the girl I was 2 years ago who fearlessly and curiously boarded flights with no itinerary and little notice. In many ways, I look up to the confidence it took to get to that place. She still very much creeps her way up inside of me. With every moment of stillness she asks, “where can we go?” With any conflict that arises she says, “when can we go?” I guess I’m at the place where I want all those rewards again, but to come back to a set up life. 

Going back to school hasn’t been easy and I’ve kicked myself for time I could’ve been abroad, but I’m slowly getting back to the old me and incorporating new elements to my identity. I’m still traveling, but it’s a lot more calculated now. In my psychology class, I learned about Erik Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development and identity vs. role confusion in adolescence. I feel that stage supersedes adolescence as we’re all still morphing into who we want to be. Adolescence may end, but this idea of identity and role confusion follows us throughout our lives. It changes when we move to a new place, start a new job, fall in love, fall out of love, start a family, the list never ends. I love how adaptable us humans are. We deal with loss, new beginnings, and challenges on repeat and still pick ourselves up onto our windy paths. One reluctant foot in front of the other.

I’ve slowly plucked myself off the floor since starting this job and pushed myself to find that excitement again. I’ve started to make the time for travel, whether it be an international trip or a weekend getaway. I’m changing my mindset to enjoy the little moments that make up the greater image of life. I used to think I wasn’t living unless I went to all these new places without finding a way to merge my travel fulfillment with every day fulfillment. This job has hardened me in a lot of ways, but it’s also forced me to appreciate the present moment and location. To want to create a life I don’t feel the constant need to escape from. To find the difference between traveling for a destination and traveling for an experience. 

I stopped writing here because I felt lost, unaccomplished and unable to enjoy travel in a job that encourages it. Stuck in a mindset that made it nearly impossible to see through the cracks in a shattered image. However, I now feel I can find appreciation for what life brings me. I don’t know whether it’s the site renewal charge on my card or if I’m feeling more in tune with myself, but I feel I can finally write again. While my entries might be more spaced out, I want to use this space to reflect on my adventures and celebrate the joy from the experiences I’ve had. The adventures that have made me feel human and helped me discover the excitement of the little moments.