Seeking out the seismic life shift
And is this a 10 year cycle?
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There's been a lot of decluttering going on in our house
It began at the start of the year, in anticipation of The Big Move. The contents of the shed listed on Freecycle, collector item football shirts sold on Vinted, materials for projects that never got started up on Facebook Marketplace.
I Marie Kondo’d my worldly possessions a few years ago and so what I own is pretty pared back as it is. My husband however, never did this. Plus, he's a bit of a hoarder, so he's had a lot more to work through. It's quite incredible just how easy it is to accumulate so much guff.
Part of this process has involved him emptying out shoeboxes stuffed with tourist site pamphlets, boarding passes and general travel paraphernalia from the nine month round-the-world voyage we went on a few years back.
One of these was the pass to get into Angkor Wat in Cambodia, which requires a photo being taken and printed just before you enter. We laugh at this photo of me because it was taken at 6am, after a night of minimal sleep, after months of non-stop moving whilst living out of a suitcase.
To say I look fucking tired in it is an understatement. It has pride of place on our fridge and we both point and laugh at it frequently.
The other thing of note about this stub is the date printed on it: 23rd May 2015. I weirdly only properly registered the date when we were on the same date earlier this year, exactly a decade later.
‘Woah! It's been 10 years today since we were at Angkor Wat,’ I said. ‘Since we were in Cambodia. An exact decade has passed since we went on our big world tour.’
That amount of travel was a huge deal at the time
It took me about a year and a half to convince Matt we should do it in the first place and almost the same amount of time to plan it.
I was still firmly in the grip of my ‘old life’ back then. The intention was always to take a sabbatical from it for this trip, then once the travel was over, slip back into the position I had in that software company, as if nothing and no one had changed.
But a few months prior to our departure date, the role became unbearable. So much so that even though I only had to stay another five weeks to receive my annual bonus, I told them they could stuff their bonus.
I couldn't stay one more day in that bullshit job (there's a whole chapter about this in Pathways).
So I plucked up the courage to fully quit and we went travelling.
On our return nine months later, I only realised how much I’d missed our home once we crossed the threshold, batting away the stringy cobwebs and opening up the blinds and windows. My house, with my things in, decorated the way I want.
It felt smaller than when we left
But I guess the big wide world has that effect.
On the way back from the airport we took a tram. On it, I watched a man eat his way through 11 rich tea biscuits (I was counting). There wasn’t even any tea involved. “Great Britain,” I thought.
Whilst it seemed little had changed back home, we had been forever altered by our time away.
I had been honing my photography skills during those months and for a whole day each week for 36 weeks straight, I locked myself away in the hotel room to edit the photos and write up a blog post about the past seven days. I knew I would never do this retrospectively; it had to be done in real time.
It was just before we left the UK that I started my Instagram, which grew really quickly over the course of the trip. And reading back on those blog posts today, the writing is actually not bad.
It was only while we were away exploring distant lands and having novel experiences that a new awareness settled over me: I was more creative than I had ever dared to realise.
Yes, I had a degree in Astrophysics and had been working in the software company for several years.
But it was only because I self-administered this seismic shift — jumping feet first into a once-in-a-lifetime adventure and embracing all the challenges and beauty that came with it — that allowed me to meet and recognise my true, creative self in the first place.
Back in the UK, I had to find a way to earn money. I now knew with absolute conviction that I never wanted to have a boss again; working for myself was the only path forwards. My autonomy was more important to me than pay-check security; I figured the rest would work itself out.
This self-employed life began with dabbling in food photography for new restaurants and writing the occasional freelance hospitality piece. Add to that the magic ingredients of hard work, a sprinkling of luck and a hefty block of time, and this somehow progressed to where I am today: a freelance TV and radio presenter, writer and journalist (and now published author - holla).
One night over an al fresco dinner in Buenos Aires in the sultry summer month of January, my dear friend Imabelle who lives there, asked me how I cope when I have ‘tough days’ at work.
I paused for a moment. Then I just answered honestly.
‘These don’t exist for me,’ I said.
Her initial micro expression of confusion was quickly replaced with a nod; she understood how this could possibly be.
‘That is because you are free,’ she said with the clarity of determined aspiration. She wants this for her too.
‘The option of a far more vital life is available to multitudes of people who don’t have it right now. There are literally hundreds of millions of people who choose to live out their days on a mechanistic schedule in the hope that someday their sacrifice will all be worth it.
Most of those are actively choosing that enslavement, not forced into it. And they can actively unchoose it as well. But that requires giving up a wide variety of comforts, safety, familiarity and more, especially in the short term.
If this seems impossible, then get to know a diverse sampling of people who have done it. You will soon realise how accessible it truly can be
…
I cannot recommend greatly enough working on an exit plan from that existence.’
— Ben Falk, permaculturist and ecologist
When I look back at the course of events over the past decade that have lead me to where I am now – able to earn a crust doing creative work I love, being more creature than machine, and ‘being free’ — I am never not amazed. I am never not grateful.
I often think how lucky I am that this all fell into place.
But then I check myself.
Because whilst luck played an important role, along with an endless list of other elements and favourable factors — including privilege — that deserve recognition, where I am today is mostly down to me.
All of the above doesn’t amount to much if there is no action to support it. I am at this point because I dared to be brave. I dared to jack in the job that was eroding the core of me. I dared to open myself up to what the world had to offer.
I didn’t just dream about it, talk about it, think about it, or plan it – I actually did it.
And it completely altered the trajectory of my life. If I hadn’t hauled myself out of the comfort of a cushy but unfulfilling job and thrown myself into a different wavelength of existence, I might legitimately still be there.
How many years might I have wasted?
Sure, my life today boasts little in the way of job security and my income from month to month varies wildly. But I can choose to spend a Thursday visiting my friend by the sea to guzzle down oysters and drink Champagne on the beach.
This is the kind of shackle-free living that textures life. It’s replete with inconsistency and uncertainty but also a whole lot of opportunity and the will of my own actions too; I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I can’t fail to notice that exactly 10 years later, I am doing the precise same thing
The Angkor Wat ticket stub has pointed out to me that, exactly a decade on, I am once again self-inflicting an equal parts unsettling and exhilarating life upheaval. It’s both uncomfortable and intoxicating, difficult and thrilling.
This time it’s not a world expedition, but uprooting our lives to rural Portugal to build our dream home and live off the land.
I get so excited about what’s to come – not really having a clue as to what that will actually be – that I sometimes feel physically nauseous from the flitting butterflies in my stomach. The puking emoji is one I find myself increasingly using.
That’s my body’s way of telling me, you’re onto a good thing.
I’d love to know if this 10 year cycle of intentionally and completely re-routing the course of your life is a thing for anyone else. If I seek out another big shift a decade from now, I think I can legitimately start calling it a pattern.
Life is short. Inaction quickly consumes a lifetime. Just do it, whatever the ‘it’ is for you.
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