If you’re an avid reader of my blog, then you may have noticed that as of late, I haven’t been publishing my usual deep and thoughtful, yet sometimes inspiring pieces. My work was once full of analytical twists, wistful ramblings, and challenging provocations, but now I find it hard to string one thought to the next. Inspiration has eluded me, and now my work suffers for it. Ohio is boring, cold, and depressing, and while at one time that was enough to bring out some interesting whimsical and dark pieces, it’s now attributing to my own complacency.

Around this time last year, I wrote a hybrid post, titled “A thankful rant” where I took a moment to thank those who mean the most to me, my friends, my family, and you, my readers… Until – well, this happens quite often to be honest – it turned into a bit of a rant about the original meanings for holidays and how the point has been lost for most of the reasons for the seasons. Before jumping into familiar waters, I want to say that if my family or friends are reading this – you mean so much to me, and I hope the next month, leading to Christmas is a magical one for each of you. To my readers, I just want to say thank you, thank you, thank you! For without your support, your comments, your reads, and your thoughts, I would not be able to do what I do, living a life fulfilled with exploration, creativity, personal growth, and with the ability to share my opinions and feelings freely, with complete gratification stemming from those I am blessed enough to inspire, instilling a new life full of hope.

I’ve sort of taken on the role of the ‘outcast’ in my family. So, without getting too deep and personal in this post, I thought it would be interesting to talk a little about myself and why they refer to me this way. From a world view, my family is similar to the ‘typical American way,’ in that they have dedicated their lives to owning their own businesses and focusing on having children and owning houses, and so on and so forth. While I believe this lifestyle choice is fine and eventually I will likely decide to settle down in a similar manner, my perspective on how I want to live my life is typically not in agreement with my family.

     Almost 7 months, 206 days, 4,936 hours or 296,160 seconds ago, I was robbed in Puerto Rico. My rental car was broke into and my bags were stolen while I was hiking to the La Mina waterfall in the El Yunque rainforest on the island of Puerto Rico. It’s taken that long for me to work through the complications, create a digital nomad career for myself, and FINALLY get back out there to do what I love – traveling and experiencing the world, and meeting new people. I’ve done all of this without the help of my ‘trusted’ insurance company – who (if you’ve kept up with my blog, know already) has been fighting me, and trying not to pay upon their promise of coverage. So, if you pray, please pray that the situation will be resolved shortly (thank you) – I’ve gone above and beyond, and have done all they have asked of me.
     A few days ago, I decided to purchase my plane tickets, in a matter of minutes after realizing that I can afford to safely get back out there. It’s amazing what a little know-how and research can do – I took what was a $1300 airfare ticket down to $560. “Travel hacking” really is the right name for it, because as long as you know what to do and what to look for, then you’re all set. Finding the best price on airfare is something I work with people all the time on. With being able to fly over to Spain cheaply, I decided that there’s no better time than the present. On April 16th, I’ll be flying into London and after a 36 hour layover, I’ll be arriving in Barcelona!

     ‘Stir crazy’ is an early 1900’s term that was used to describe unbalanced people who have been incarcerated for far too long. While I’m not in prison, I feel as though the last six months have been relevant in many ways. Sometimes the feeling comes and goes, and other times it’s only a feeble-stirring – but not this time. The feeling has grown the past few weeks and I can’t quite seem to take control of it. I’ve come down with quite a case of Pruritic Peragritis (the dreaded travel itch), and I can’t seem to refocus my mind elsewhere. I find myself on Google maps everyday, creating new and interesting itineraries – that only if I could afford to jump in my car and take off right now, then I probably would just leave! ...I still might.
     I obsessively research and create routings for trips through the southern and western parts of the U.S., with some spanning from Mexico all the way up to Alaska, and then a few that run along the east coast of Canada and the United States. If I could pick anywhere in the world to go right now, I would start in Spain and continue on with my European trip routing that I had researched a few months back. But the amount of money that that trip entails is far greater than a local continental road trip.