For three days, the entire country erupts into a massive full-scale waterfight. It was impossible to walk to the nearest 7–11 (in Thailand, this is always only a minute walk away) without being soaked through and covered in chalk, which strangers smudge on your face and arms like warpaint. In Bangkok, a city that’s blazing hot year-round, I swear the temperature shot up ten degrees the first day of Songkran. It was fiery out. The water, ice-cold at times, felt pretty fucking great. The whole city feels like it’s on holiday. Everyone reverts to acting like a five-year-old. Everyone is laughing and playing and running about dumping water on one another. There’s no notable difference, at least in my neighbourhood, between the Thais and the farangs. Everyone’s fair game.

I’ll admit I’ve had a love-hate relationship with Bangkok, and Asia in a larger scope. A lot of messed-up things went down during my time there, and I often felt disarmingly out of place. I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about Thailand, but I’m immensely glad I stayed the four extra days to catch Songkran. I’ve never seen anything quite so mad: it’s Thailand simultaneously at its best and at its worst. On the positive side, it’s delightful, childlike fun, and everyone forgets to be so guarded all the time. Of course, in Thailand, this means there are boatloads of fatalities from road accidents and insane drunken revelers. I read some pretty insane stories of people being stabbed when they didn’t want to play.

The only photo I got of Songkran, mostly because I quickly became very protective of my electronics and kept them hermetically sealed in super-resilient ziplock bags I’d bought for the Amazon. This is before things got really rowdy, so imagine the truckload of people spraying waterguns at the people on the street, who in turn are pitching buckets of water from those huge buckets at the passing vehicles. Also, make sure everyone’s covered in chalk.

Somehow this seems perfectly in line with my experience of Thailand and Southeast Asia. When I left Bangkok, I’d had three absolutely delightful days in which I finally stopped working. (And on a weekend, no less!) I relaxed, played, met new people, and generally fell in love with the country, really for the first time. There was some drama around my leaving that made it bittersweet. But then maybe that’s just how Thailand works: like their food needs to balance sweet and salty, sour and spicy, the experience never excludes the nastier aspects. Everything is balanced.

So I left with a bang, but ultimately made it out in one piece. I left for the airport, still soaked through and covered in chalk, with my giant suitcase and as many belongings as I could stuff into it. For me, this is “moving.”

I spend a lot of time thinking about the concept of home. It’s always been fluid, to some degree or another, but as I’ve become more and more a drifter, it’s become even more intangible. For me, all these places are home, even if they’re only temporary. Even if it’s only three months. Even if I have an end-date in mind. Even if I have an onward ticket (which I never do, because I’m a raging commitophobe).

These places are my homes because, in that temporary space of time, they’re where my life is. I develop routines, I work, I create my own space, I learn to salvage food from whatever I can find at the markets, I make friends, I form new habits. My life changes every time I move, because everything around me changes. But in that moment that’s who I am and that’s what my life is—there’s no sense that part of me is somewhere else, or that this specific moment is temporal and will pass.

And so every few months, I pack up and leave, and my whole life changes.

Turkish coffee in the Ottoman coffee house in top of a hill on the Anatolian side of the city: delicious sludge.

It took me ten days to get from Bangkok, one temporary home, to Barcelona, my new home-for-a-while. I ended up in limbo. I spent eight excruciatingly painful hours stuck in the Mumbai airport, a little over a week in Istanbul, and fifteen hours in Athens en-route. In every place, I felt truly and utterly adrift.

I suspect that my sense of “roots” is different from most. In the past year and a half, I’ve made my homes in five different countries on four different continents. Travel has become an integral part of who I am: when I say I’m a vagabond, I really do mean it. I haven’t stayed in one place much longer than a month.

But in all that time, I’ve always had a “home” that anchored me. Even when travelling, I’d have a home to return to. I often have a matryoshka doll system of keys, where one key opens a room that contains another set of keys, and so on. In Istanbul, I didn’t even have keys, only couches and people’s telephone numbers. I didn’t have a place that was mine, and nowhere felt like home.

It was a truly bizarre feeling.

Barcelona is gorgeous at all times, but I think it’s prettiest at night, in the rain. In El Raval, where I live now, there’s beautiful old buildings covered in gorgeous graffiti everywhere, and a million tiny winding side streets to explore everywhere.

A lot of people travel to explore themselves. This is especially true for people on a gap year, or people who’ve recently been fired, or people facing some kind of life-altering crisis. It’s a cliche to say that in exploring the world you’re exploring yourself, as mirrored in your own interactions with said changing world. But most cliches are true for good cause (and I believe that in itself is something of a cliche, and here we are with the infinitely looping mirrors and matryoshka dolls again). And it’s true: pushing your boundaries and exploring things outside your comfort zone teaches you more about yourself than it does about the world. It’s impossible to face so many external changes and not change, fundamentally, inside.

I’ve travelled 30,000km around the world from where I started out in October, leaving one home for a new uncharted one. (That’s just point-to-point, home-to-home, and doesn’t include all the offshoot trips I take from these homes. The map of my journey looks like a series of distracted loops blooming around fixed points.) I only have 6000 more kilometers to go before I reach my next home, months from now, and I don’t know who I’ll be when that happens.

But I’ve learned a lot. I’ve learned my limits, and the things I need to stay (relatively) grounded. My original plan was to stay in Barcelona two months, then couchsurf my way around Spain/Morocco/Portugal/France/Iceland for the last month or so. But I’ve learned my limits, and I’ve learned how important it is to my mental well-being that I have a place, however small, however temporal, however tenuous, that is my own—that I can call home.

So as rootless as I thought I was, there are still anchors that hold me. I’d love to be a true vagabond woman, but I’m ready to admit that I’m not, really. I’m just forging my own strange path, as convoluted and seemingly random as it may be.

Working that obsessively for such a long period has only increased my stress levels. I wasn’t sleeping much either, so I went to a doctor in Thailand. He watched me wringing my wrists and listened to me ramble on about all sorts of things, then prescribed me a whole slew of sedatives. I was hoping that’d help matters.

It didn’t.

The first night I took these drugs, I went out drinking. I’ve made some fairly wretched decisions in my life, and I’m certain I’ll make more. This was, undoubtedly, one of the absolute worst.

I remember a good portion of the evening, but then it starts getting hazy. Then it turns completely black until I’m somewhere, alone, shoeless, being picked up by the Thai police. I remember getting into the car only because I was convinced they had my purse, and that they said they’d return it to me if I came with them.

Whether it was the Thai police or people before them who stole my purse, I’ll never know. My stint in the police station mostly consisted of me alternately breaking down into panicked tears or yelling at the police about my purse, neither of which seemed to be helping matters. At one point, I started rifling through the station and opening any drawers and cabinets I could find in the desperate hope of finding my bag. I didn’t, of course, but I did find a machete, which I carried around pretty purposefully for a bit before realizing I’d be in far, far more trouble if I threatened a cop with a machete.

Eventually, after my head started to clear, I started asking them quite aggressively if they were planning on charging me with anything. They started being nicer to me. Somewhere along the line, I signed something written only in Thai. I’m so terrified of what it was, and honestly, I think this was the stupidest of my mistakes of that night. With a clear head, I would never have signed something I couldn’t read. But in a terrified, drugged haze, I signed.

And then I left, shoeless and lost. I was missing my Canadian passport, my money, my phone, and my cigarette-case. I wasn’t sure I’d make it home. According to the computer I somehow managed to access in the police station, I was three hours’ walk from home. I debated the morality of the issue, then found the nearest subway station and jumped the stiles. I was so destroyed, I actually passed out on the floor of the train on my way home. Somehow, I managed to come to enough to get off at my station, and walk the rest of the way home.

It was a nightmare.

Not the dragon that bit me, but he seemed about the size of it. He was part of a temple complex half in ruins outside Kanchanaburi, and he was at least thirty feet tall.

And it wasn’t even the worst thing I’d endured in the those last few weeks. I seem to be attracting trouble. First, there was the friendly gentleman who accosted me outside my house, grabbing his crotch and shoving it in my face until I shut the door on his. Then there was a man I went out for drinks with, who seemed perfectly pleasant at first until he tried to forcibly have sex with me in an elevator. He proceeded to act a complete ass when I told him to fuck off, making for a highly unpleasant night. I got friendly with a boy in a club who then proceeded to push things too far. I’m fairly certain I was attacked the night of the bag-incident. Overall, I’m not impressed with the men of Southeast Asia.

And then I had to deal with the Stolen Passport Problem, which was a bigger problem than it needed to be solely because it was the passport I’d used to enter Thailand last. Fixing the Problem involved three separate trips to the Canadian embassy, a visit to a different Thai police station that nearly gave me PSTD flashbacks, and a trip to the Thai immigration bureau, a place that makes the DMV seem timely and organized. All this while balancing a complex array of impending travel plans, soon-to-expire visas, and still far too much work for me to handle.

The last few weeks have been so rife with horrid goings-on and massive stress, I can’t actually piece together anymore in which order various events occurred. My sense of time is completely mangled. I can actually physically feel when my stress levels spike.

So I did what any sane person would: I ran away from Bangkok. I left my computer where it was, for twenty-four hours of work-free relaxo-time. For me, this meant swimming, sleeping like a human, then renting a motorbike and riding it around Kanchanaburi province.

Hopefully I would have noticed if an elephant had been crossing. Otherwise, between me, the bike, and the elephant, I’m quite certain the elephant would have won.

I’m now in Penang, Malaysia for my last government-mandated visa run before I leave Thailand. My hosts here keep telling me to stop being such a workaholic, so clearly I haven’t entirely mended my ways. But I’ve been getting better, slowly, and I’ve stopped working quite so much. My stress levels certainly feel as though they might be dropping, although I won’t be able to tell for certain until I’m back “home.” I’ve at least learned I can’t sustain working like a maniac every waking hour. I am taking time to step away from The Machine for at least an hour every day. It’s progress.

Something about that motorbike ride flicked a switch in my brain. When I started out, I was so terrified I was visibly shaking. Mostly, I was worried that I’d make a mistake and break something—or myself—and have no way to cover the costs. Thailand happens to have one of the world’s highest motorbike-mortality rates: probably because they all drive like coked-out hyenas. (Travel insurance? Health insurance? What are these things?) But I’ll admit I was a little worried that I’d just make another bad decision and fuck everything up again.

But an hour or so into the ride, I realized I was doing alright. I started to relax for the first time in weeks, if not months. I started to enjoy myself. And when I pulled the bike back into the rental lot, the adrenaline surged, all my endorphins went crazy, and I was on the most massive high I’ve felt in some time.

I’d done it. One of the reasons that initially brought me to Thailand was the allure of renting a cheap bike and driving it about. I honestly thought that might not end up happening. But I did it! I drove a motorbike around Thailand, and I didn’t screw up once. I came out alive and unscathed, and totally thrilled by the whole experience.

Thailand may have tried to take a bite out of me, and it sure as hell has given me some battle scars.

But ultimately, I came out the winner.

Fiona, my second motorcycle-love. Or maybe my third. I’ve got a lot of love to give, and I’m not stingy. I’ll always remember her fondly for my initial inability to get her started, and how ferocious she made me feel once I got a feel for her.

All told, I spent just shy of a month travelling through Southeast Asia, and I’m not entirely sure I liked it. That’s new for me. I’ve visited dozens of countries and hundreds of different cities, and I’ve never really landed anywhere I just didn’t like. I think I may have liked Sai Gon, but it’s hard to tell, as I spent the vast majority of my time there working from waking to sleeping. Cambodia, though, where I spent vast leagues of time, I despised. I think I’m attracted to places that are chaotic because they’re so far from what I know—but Cambodia was another world altogether, and I just never felt that I really enjoyed it.

As with anything though, I learned things. And while I don’t think I’ll ever go back to Cambodia, and I don’t think I’d ever say I was happy while I was there, I don’t for a second regret doing it. Beyond anything else, it taught me an awful lot about myself, about how I work, and about parts of the world I’m not comfortable with.

Playing hide-and-go-seek in Angkor Wat. As much as I loathed it for being, well, basically a lot of falling-down buildings covered in tourists (I’m over ruins, alright?) it was pretty neat. I liked that you could jump around in and through the whole thing—except when they considered you to be inappropriately dressed, which I so frequently am.

1. I can cross any street.

I’m an enthusiastic pedestrian even in my hometown (wherever that may be). When I land in a new place, the first thing I do is walk for hours. I’ve done this my entire life, and it’s bar none the best way to get a feel for a place. I love getting lost in strange places. I love accidentally discovering interesting places I may not have come across were I driving. I love walking down a street and drinking in the environment surrounding me.

In Southeast Asia though, sometimes this is a trickier task than you’d assume. There are people everywhere. And the further you get into Viet Nam, the more bikes there are, which means that instead of two columns of traffic, you suddenly have to cope with twelve. In Cambodia, there’s usually four streams of traffic, all going in opposing directions: crossing is less “look both ways” and more “look everywhere constantly”. Viet Nam, in spite of having about a hundred bikes to every car, is far more organized, but the crossing-the-street situation is still so intense that, in the tourist districts of town, there are people there solely to help tourists get across the street. When I went to the grocery store in Ho Chi Minh, I walked along a “hem”—basically a series of tiny little criss-crossing alleyways-cum-streets. Most of the way, it was about wide enough for two people to walk abreast, and I was walking along, in the dark, next to two streams of motorbike traffic heading in alternate directions, desperately praying they’d stop for me when there was another bike passing at the same time.

I was actually quite terrified just walking down the street.

And I’ve adjusted to the strange cadences of street-crossings in all kinds of other cities. Cities where there’s no such thing as right-of-way, and marked crossings are clearly just decorative. I remember when Rome and NYC made my nerves spike as I crossed the streets. The rhythms of Southeast Asia, however, are wildly removed from anything I know. When I first landed in Bangkok, there were certain streets I had troubles crossing. I’d watch for a local waiting, and follow them across the road. Now, after Cambodia and Viet Nam, streets that once left me paralyzed seem calm and laid back in comparison. I no longer am thrown if I’m left standing in between lines of traffic, waiting for the next seam.

I’m pretty sure I can cross any goddamned street you could throw at me, at this point.

2. A traveller and a tourist are very different things.

The Mekong delta was gorgeous, and interesting, and I’m glad I went. But honestly, I would have rather explored it myself. I’ve had this trouble before, in a place with a similar feel (the Amazon) and a similar motive for me: I don’t think I’d have been able to explore either of these tropical, water-dwelling places without purchasing a tour, but I didn’t like it either time.

In the Mekong, they kept waking me up at 6am to go do something wretched, like see a fish factory. By the by, a fish factory is pretty much as disgusting as you’d expect: it reeks, there are some fish, and that’s pretty much it. Of course, I tend to go to sleep around 4am anyway, and in Asia, because I’m twelve to thirteen hours off from most of my clients, my night-owl tendencies have become infinitely worse, and I tend to go to sleep somewhere between sunup and 10am. So waking up at 6am for four mornings straight was basically my personal idea of hell.

Skulls at the Cambodian killing fields in Phnom Penh. The killing fields were actually ridiculously serene and beautiful, which made it seem all the more chilling. Honestly, given the massive genocide and fucked-up-edness that Cambodia/Kampuchea endured, and how recent its genocide was, it’s no surprise it’s rather on the destroyed side.

But that, I could have handled. What threw me was being, essentially, stripped of my independence. Sure, I had lots of time to go visit places and wander about on my own. But ultimately, I felt as though I was on someone else’s schedule, and that bothered me intensely. I spent much of that time feeling like a little kid being taken on a field trip. I know lots of people do this and have no problem with it. I, on the other hand, cannot handle it. I’d rather spend a week wandering about cafés in a city on my own, never seeing anything, than I would be led by the hand through a place.

I’m certain this ties into other things as well, like my reluctance to travel with other people, my inherent introvert nature, my gazelle-like desire for space that’s mine and empty of anyone else but me, and my tendency to avoid tourist traps, even if they might be tourist traps for good reason. My style of travelling is just different from most peoples’, even if I’m not working, which doesn’t happen more than once every ten years. It’s nice to try other people’s styles from time to time, but I can’t sustain it, and it’s best if I just admit as much and let myself absorb a place the way I want to.

3. Every now and then, take a goddamn break.

I’ve been working from the time I wake to the time I sleep—and then sleeping about four hours a night—for the past month. Maybe longer. It’s really grating on me, and I can feel myself getting horrifically burned out as a result. Last weekend, I took the whole thing (almost entirely) off–I think I only worked a few hours Saturday morning, and a few more Sunday evening. Having two days off was pretty fantastic, and I suspect I would have completely lost my shit had I not done so. As it is/was, the stress is/was biting into me so deeply I spend/spent some nights doing nothing but drinking, working, singing along to sad songs, and crying. I honestly don’t know what it is that’s setting me off: is it that I feel so displaced and lost? Is it just that I’m overworked and overdone and teetering on the brink of burnout? Either way, I think there’s a certain balance to be met. Yes, I need to work a lot, even if it isn’t healthy for me. I run a business, its rhythms are as unpredictable and wild as Ho Chi Minh City traffic, and I can’t always be in control of them. But if I’m determined about taking one day off, once a week, that may help me hang in there until the 18-hour days are over and I can finally go back to being human again.

This may not suffice. It’s entirely possible that I need real, live, actual time off. It’s been some time since I’ve felt so overwhelmed and burned out. But part of running a business means that’s not always possible, and I’m so freaked out about money that I’m motivated to keep working like a madwoman. Ideally, everything I’m doing—much of which is unbillable, investment-in-my-future type work—will pay out in the future. However, the longer I do this, the more aware I am of burnout. That awareness, I think, will be enough to drag myself out of it eventually.

Floating markets in the Mekong delta. I’ll admit, as much as I was annoyed, misanthropic, and depressed most of this trip, I got to see some really cool things I wouldn’t have otherwise. I think this boat was the one on which I accidentally met some older Canadian gentlemen when I loudly stated how I was planning to throw myself under a bus when I hit sixty. They were pretty fantastic, and I wish I’d told them when we parted that, if I turn out to be like them when I’m nearing sixty, I’ll change my stance.

Ultimately, I suppose I just took a trip and I didn’t like it so much. That’s the first time that’s ever happened to me, and so it’s a bit of a challenge for me to deal with. But I don’t, even for a single second, regret it in the least. I did learn a lot—mostly about myself, but also about the world around me. And really, that’s what I’m aiming for here. This whole crazy trip of mine is all about pushing my boundaries, learning new things, and making myself stronger.

Even if I spend a month or so going through hell, I’m coming out of it infinitely stronger, more adaptable, and more aware of the world around me. As miserable as I’ve been, that’s still a win as far as I’m concerned.

I’m homesick.

I have never, ever, been homesick before. Maybe that sounds strange coming from someone who travels so much, for such long periods of time, or in such a weird way, but I think I’m suited to being a vagabond. I feel more grounded when I’m constantly moving and my environment is always changing. I miss the people I love, and it’s often heart-wrenching to say goodbyes, but there’s a part of me that really enjoys being a temporary presence in people’s lives. (My abandonment complex may also take pleasure in leaving others behind, rather than them leaving me, as a defense mechanism, but that’s between Freud and my brain, so let’s just ignore it.)

Admittedly, Asia is different from anything I’ve ever seen or experienced before. Europe, Mexico, and South America, while culturally quite different from what I know, are still infinitely closer to the things I know than Asia is. The difference between west and east is far larger than I ever would have anticipated. I feel, to a certain degree, “at home” in European-derived cultures, given that my upbringing was mostly British in nature and Canadian in environment. The west, barring the small differences, isn’t really all that different, once you get right down to it.

This was my first view of Asia that wasn’t from an airport—from a hotel room in Shanghai, which I booked because I was exhausted after spending twelve hours on various forms of transit between Ensenada to LA for my sixteen-hour flight. I lay down at 10pm to “close my eyes for a second” and woke up at 2am.

Asia, on the other hand, is a totally different world. As much as I’m always drawn to places that are far from what I’m accustomed to, the places I’ve visited and lived, up to now, aren’t all that fundamentally different from North-North America. If nothing else, at least in the western world, I can understand the script, if not so much the languages—with the minor exception of places like Serbia/Bosnia. Here, I’ve got no footing at all. The languages I’ve come across thus far tend to be tonal, and use sentence structure that’s bizarre to me. The scripts, much as I’ve tried to learn them, pretty much make my mind implode entirely. (I think I can recognize about six characters in Thai now. If I’m lucky.)

As much as I try to keep an open mind, I’m just not sure I like Asian culture. Certain aspects I think are charming: the barefootedness, the tendency to eat on the streets, the constant use of motorbikes everywhere. But then there’s the abject poverty and lack of infrastructure (Cambodia is the poorest country I’ve ever visited, and it’s a little heartbreaking), the subtle misogyny underscoring the culture (in a way that’s more pervasive in part because it’s less blatant than it is in machismo-heavy cultures like Mexico and Argentina), and the parallel concepts of subservience and humility (both of which are certainly nice in some respects, but ultimately lead to people being constantly trampled on by, and accepting, their horrifically corrupt governments, often without question).

These are sweeping generalizations, of course, but they’re overarching concepts I’m struggling to come to terms with at this point, and I think they’re a large part of what makes me feel displaced.

Siem Reap, Cambodia. Surprisingly pretty, although because of Ankor Wat, it was insanely tourist-laden, which I didn’t much care for. Most notably, it seemed that most of the tourists were completely blind to the state of the country surrounding them, which interests me far more than the temples and ruins.

There are other things, of course. My interpersonal relationships have shifted substantially since Mexico: I’ve been lucky enough to have people come visit me, but I’ve had a grand total of a week to myself, and that was my first week in Bangkok. Since then, I’ve been sharing rooms with others and spending vast tracts of time with friends of mine, every single day. Which is great, I mean, I’m so damned lucky—I was most worried about becoming lonely and missing people—but it’s still hard on me. At one point, when I spent a week in Oaxaca and Mexico City with some friends, I fell into a pretty harsh depression for about a day because I’d spent so much time around other people. I love my friends and I wouldn’t be half the person I am without them, but I cannot survive without “recharging” time away from everyone.

Much of this article about “caring for your inner introvert” applies to me. I know a lot of people who don’t believe I’m an introvert because I’m friendly and open (most of the time), but much of that is exhausting to me. While I enjoy, require, and thrive on socialization, it’s best in small doses. I often need to force myself to socialize, because my instinct is to shy away from others, but I know it teaches me a lot and I really do enjoy meeting new people. That is, when I’m not feeling like a misanthropic hermit, which is only about 30% of the time.

A big part of travelling for me, too, is that sense of independence I derive from landing in a foreign city. I love feeling lost and alone, forced to figure out my own way of surviving. I like walking down streets, listening to music, taking in whatever takes my fancy. With others, it’s a different experience altogether. There’s a certain amount of compromise that needs to be made, and you have to spend a lot of time talking. While it’s certainly enjoyable—which oftentimes, travelling solo is not—it’s different.

My “home” in Bangkok right now. I think I’d feel more sane if I were back here, even, just for a bit of familiarity to my environment (even though it looks rather gray and sad). I’d hate to think a place only resonates with me when I spend time exploring its dark little corners on my own, but it’s entirely possible that’s the case. Can you be homesick for multiple places and faces simultaneously?

It’s hard for me to admit that I’m having so much trouble. It feels, ultimately, like a failure on my part. I’m only halfway through my grand world tour—why the fuck isn’t everything all flowers and roses? Why is it that my brain keeps desperately contemplating booking a flight back “home”? I’m not even sure where I’m homesick for—I just want to be in a place that feels like home. It could probably be Bangkok, or Mexico, or Halifax, or even Buenos Aires maybe. There’s a part of me that is just screaming out for a space I feel is mine and for environs that feel at least vaguely familiar.

Having never really dealt with this before, I don’t have a good solution that isn’t “drinking large quantities of wine and hoping it goes away”. Luckily, I have a travel companion who’s good about understanding my particular quirks and the resources to change and adapt my plans (inasmuch as I actually make plans) in order to ensure I don’t go stark raving mad. I have a couple more weeks of travel through Southeast Asia before I go back “home” to Bangkok, and I’m more interested in seeing the Mekong Delta and Saigon than I am in giving in to the whiny little child inside my head who needs things to be a certain way.

Maybe the trick, then, is accepting it for what it is, facing up to it, and making adjustments to keep it manageable. I’d hate myself if I let my own frustrations stop me from seeing and doing all the things I’d like to do and see. Ultimately, I don’t think I’m a failure for finding things hard, but I think I’d be failing if I hid away from those hard things.

And so: I’ll just keep going. If nothing else, by the time I hit Spain, I’ll feel at home again. And if I ran back “home” now, I’d probably feel just as displaced.

Colourful buildings, replete with seemingly arbitrary paintings along the walls, are just so common a part of the visual culture even in Ensenada, where I lived (mostly) for my time in Mexico. Just walking the streets makes me want to start painting in vibrant colours.

Instead, Mexico fixed me. My experience there is a big part of why I’m so driven to travel now. I have long wanted to return to Mexico, but I’ll admit I think a large part of my original infatuation with the country was an emotional one—I wanted a chance to see the country itself, rather than just seeing how it changed me.

What I discovered, living in Mexico for three months, was a place that never stopped surprising me.

There’s this story about French poet (and Surrealist pioneer) André Breton coming to Mexico, and asking a carpenter to build him a table. The carpenter requested a drawing to follow. Breton draw a quick sketch of a table, rendering it in three dimensions, that way you would once you’re older than, say, six, and understand a bit better that very little—beyond paper and anorexic models—in the world is flat

The carpenter, of course, came back with a triangular table with two legs shorter than the other two.

Somewhere along the highway between Mexico City and Oaxaca, I found this giant advertising structure built into the hill. This is, in case you’re wondering, in the absolute middle of nowhere, and it must be about twenty feet tall. Like their flags, apparently Mexico likes its ads giant. I also saw a man on an open truck, seated at a rifle mounted on the cab roof, and thought this the far more bizarre element on that ride.

This story came up a few times in different conversations with people. So did stories of a remote spot in the jungle near Xlitla. There, an eccentric British millionaire—who kept boa constrictors as pets—built a surrealist garden, complete with a stairway leading to nothing and something titled “The House on Three Floors Which Will in Fact Have Five or Four or Six”. In Tijuana, there’s a giant naked woman built by a sculptor who lived in her with his wife and children. Try as I might, I couldn’t find her anywhere; everyone I met in Tijuana had never even heard of her. And of course there’s Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, living around the corner from Trotsky in Mexico City, and a whole slew of surrealist writers and artists. Salvador Dali, apparently, at one point said that he hated Mexico. He couldn’t, he said, return to a country that was more surreal than his own paintings.

I became fascinated with the surreal in Mexico, and the more interested in it I became, the more I noticed it. Almost everyone I spoke to about it had something to contribute, and a lot of people started to point out strange things to me, just so that I’d notice them. Much of the surreal in Mexico, I think, lies in the juxtapositions. The country still retains elements of its ancient cultures in a way many others don’t, but adds in the overwhelmingly oppressive influence of the Spanish conquistadoras, who quite literally built their Catholic churches atop the Aztec pyramids.

I think this was Aztec, but I don’t quite remember. The clean lines and bold colours are used throughout all sorts of Mexican art, both pre and post Colombian. Somehow it manages to be ornate without sacrificing a sense of simplicity. The colours used are so super-saturated that they verge on fluorescent and clashing, but again, somehow it works. I saw these sorts of colour schemes everywhere, especially in the folk art in Oaxaca, which used intensely bright colours on little surrealist animal sculptures.

I read somewhere that Mexico is actually one of the most Catholic countries in the world, and it doesn’t really surprise me. Catholicism is evident everywhere, from the altars set up in the most unexpected of places to to the processions marching down the streets singing during various Christmastime holidays. I’ve taken to drinking a lot of tequila straight—like scotch, which you can do in Mexico because tequila isn’t firewater here unless you buy the lighter-fluid kind for six dollars—when these things happen, and just wandering out into the crowds to see what on earth is going on. My favourite was the first day of the Virgin of Guadalupe festival, where there was a huge feria, with food and amusement park rides and gaudy images of religious figures to be purchases,  set up around the church (which was lighting off fireworks, of course). On the steps on the church, a priest was throwing holy water on the heads of the amassed throngs.

But Catholicism in Mexico is different from Catholicism in other places. Here, there are holidays that don’t exist anywhere else. There are saints and revered figures that don’t exist anywhere in any liturgy, or in fact in any country other than Mexico at all. Santa Muerte is a prime example of this. She’s quite likely one of the most revered “religious” figures in Mexico, especially by the criminal and lower-class elements, but she’s actually shunned by the Catholic church.

In spite of this, people build massive shrines to her, and many pray to her more religiously than the any properly-sanctioned non-secular hero. Again, this goes all the way back into the country’s Aztec roots. The continued infatuation in Mexico with death has roots all the way back into the ancient pre-Columbian societies, who cannibalized their friends, sacrificed their young, and built elaborate graves for their deceased.

An elaborately prepared crypt, found in a hole in the floor somewhere in the amazing useum of Anthropology in Mexico City.

Throughout so many things I saw while I was there, the skull or skeleton motif recurred constantly. It’s one of the unshakeable realities of Mexican imagery, and I think a part of what draws me to Mexico as well. I was so excited for Día de los Muertos, and rather disappointed when I discovered there weren’t huge parades of people in costume those days in Ensenada (in Mexico City or Oaxaca, both of which I visited later, the story would be quite different, but Ensenada, while it has its charms, is not Real Mexico.)

Far from being a morbid interest, this infatuation with death often comes as a celebration of life instead. Far from grisly, the imagery is most often cartoonish, playful, or replete with bright colours. Skeleton figures are often presented as a bride and groom, perhaps mocking the institution that is so highly revered in Mexico. There’s a synthesis here between the ancient and the relatively new Catholic traditions, and they meet in strange and unexpected ways.

Having lived in Mexico for nearly three months, I started to notice how incredibly rich the visual narrative of the country is, and that there are certain elements that recur consistently, no matter what you’re looking at. For me, the bright colour palettes, the continual images of death, blood, and violence, are as much a part of Mexico as the tacos.

I came to Mexico hoping to answer the riddle—to figure out where all the surreal rooted from. I learned a lot, and I saw a lot, but ultimately, I think I ended up leaving with more questions than I had when I first arrived.

I have no idea what this vehicle is used for, if anything, but I like it. The hand-painted typography everywhere was really lovely.

I am, without question, a vagabond.

Booking a flight can make my heart race. The feeling of landing in a strange city, lost and confused, gives me great pleasure. I actually get a huge rush of endorphins, like a high, at the exact moment that I feel an airplane leave the ground. I am happiest, and most sure of myself, walking through a foreign place and watching everything around me. If I stay in one place for longer than a few weeks, I begin to get intense wanderlust.

It struck me the other day that what I’m doing is not exactly normal. Most people don’t take off from their homes for long stretches of time, and those who do most often travel in a way that’s markedly different from mine. When I meet new people, I often get thrown by their questions: yes, I’m travelling, sort of. But I’m still working. And I live in the countries I travel to. No, I probably haven’t seen that famous monument, and I quite likely don’t care much to, either.

This is actually the only photograph I have taken in San Francisco, and it’s technically in Mountain View. Still, I find it more interesting than a snapshot of a monument that’s already been photographed a million times over, by people exponentially more skilled than I (and likely wielding better cameras than the one in their phone).

I went to San Francisco last week, but I didn’t see Alcatraz or the Golden Gate Bridge. I went to México City prior to that, but didn’t bother with the pyramids. While I recognize that some things are tourist traps with good reason, the more I travel, the less interest I have in these things. Part of this is because they’re often crawling with tourists, especially in Europe, but another part of it is that visiting often feels empty. Sure, they’re beautiful or breathtaking or interesting, but I’ve invariably seen them already in movies and photographs. The crowd of tourists mindlessly snapping photographs of these much-photographed monuments, as though checking off items from a scavenger hunt, only exacerbates this emptiness.

I don’t want to see the world through a lens. I want to taste, smell, and feel it as well. That’s why I’m travelling instead of watching a documentary or zooming through Google Street View. I want to experience and interact with the world around me.

The true journey, as the interjection of an “outside” different from our normal one, implies a complete change of nutrition, a digesting of the visited country– its fauna and flora and its culture (not only the different culinary practices and condiments but the different implements used to grind the flour or stir the pot) — making it pass between the lips and down the esophagus. This is the only kind of travel that has a meaning nowadays, when everything visible you can see on television without rising from your easy chair.

The incomparable Italo Calvino, “Under the Jaguar Sun”
(About travels in Mexico! Must find prior to leaving.)

I’ve always been prone to making up my own rules. While I technically wrote something of a business plan (in about two hours, at four in the morning, off the top of my head), I didn’t do most of the things you’re supposed to do when running a business. Honestly, sometimes I wonder how I ever made it work, and how it continues to work for me. The more I think about it, the more I realize that I don’t really do much of anything in the traditional way—my work, my education, my relationships, my pastimes, and my travels are all plotted out according to a set of rules that exists solely in my own head.

Seriously, I live here. This is not always what comes to mind when people think “Mexico”. I like it for its dirty parts as much as for its pretty parts.

Somehow, though, it all works. I become more and more delighted with my life as I veer further and further from the orthodox.

I’ve noticed that sometimes people don’t understand this. I received a birthday card one year that said “Don’t worry, you’ll find your place and settle down eventually,” and it took me a while to stop being offended by the implication that I’m unhappy because I haven’t roped down a man, staked out my plot in the woods, and started producing children yet. While I know that many people are happy with this sort of prescribed life, I know I’m not one of them (or at least, I’m not yet, but I sincerely doubt I’ll ever be). It frustrates me that sometimes that means people will see me as a failure, because I’m choosing to do things in such an unusual manner. I absolutely love my life, and not everyone who “has it all” would say that. Some of the coolest, best-adjusted people I know are weirdos like me.

So buck with tradition. Drop out of school, live out of your car, take six different wives. Don’t break the rules solely for the sake of breaking them, but don’t allow them to fence you into a life you didn’t choose. The world is full of people who are stuck by circumstance, but as a citizen of an affluent country, you have such a myriad of options open to you. Don’t follow the status quo just because it’s what we’re trained to do.

I want a world full of free-spirits and vagabonds.

From a dentist’s window in Ensenada. I’m not sure if this is considered an unorthodox marketing tactic in Mexico or not, but for the purposes of this post, I’ll choose to believe that it is.

It’s pretty intense what I’m doing, and I often find myself overly emotional—not in a negative or positive way really, but I think it’s my way of processing the general instability of this way of life. Everything around me is either constantly in flux or constantly unfamiliar, and it would be easy to become unbalanced by it.

One month in, here are my tricks for staying sane. Nine months (and two or three more continents) in, I’m checking back with this, to see how much of it stays the same.

1. Realize that sometimes a day will be a wash.

Some days, you’ll be sick. Some days, you’ll be tired and jetlagged. Some days, you’ll be melancholy and homesick. I struggled with this with my recent trip to México City—I was only there for eight days, and I wanted to absorb as much of the city as I possibly could. It’s fascinating, chaotic, and a challenge to comprehend, and I castigated myself for being asleep or working at ten am. I should have been out exploring! Then I realized that running myself down just doesn’t work long-term. I’m not on holiday for a week, I’m living my life in a foreign place. Not every day will be productive work-wise, and not every day will be revelatory travel-wise. Some days will be neither. That’s okay.

Some days, you get totally lost for hours, because all the streets in Mexico City go in circles and have six different names. But then you accidentally bump into beautiful old buildings covered in graffiti, and everything works out.

2. Stay in touch.

My biggest fear is loneliness. This is my first time travelling for more than five weeks by myself, and I know that I’ll miss the social structures, and the people I care about, more than anything. Luckily, the internet is a magical thing, and it affords me roughly a thousand different ways to keep in contact with people. So I use Facebook and Twitter more than I would normally. I send texts to my litttle sister via WhatsApp. I send emails and make phone calls. I had a Skype date with my roommate, in which we both drank wine, talked, and made faces at one another for two hours. I send stories written on the back of postcards. Keeping in touch with the people who made my “stable” life so rewarding (and in fact were pretty much the reason I stayed in Halifax as long as I did between trips) goes a long way to keeping me sane and bridging the old life with the new. When everything around you changes, you change immeasurably too. Keeping grips on your alternate self helps you realize the things that remain constant and true throughout, and help you to be more assured of who you are, even when sometimes it feels as though everything’s been torn out from under you.

3. Make new friends.

While it’s important to stay in touch, if I didn’t make new friends, I’d be horrifically lonely and homesick. This was the biggest mistake I made in Argentina, when I wasn’t travelling alone, and it contributed greatly to the deterioration of my relationship with my travel companion, as well as my own sense of self.

I didn’t make friends with a baby jaguar, but I really wish I had.

I tend towards being a hermit. I’m a bit of a misanthrope to begin with, and I work by myself all day, so it’s easy to spend a day in which I don’t talk to anyone. So I’ve actively been working against that, knowing that while yes, sometimes I just need time and space away from humans, but more often it’s healthy for me to meet new people and make new connections. I live with a roommate, I couchsurf a lot again, and I make it a rule to generally say “yes” when someone asks if I want to go out. As a result, I’ve met a ton of awesome, intelligent, varied people, and I’ve learned more about the culture and hidden undercurrents of this country than I ever would have if I’d isolated myself. Sure, sometimes I end up stuck at a party where everyone’s speaking Spanish and I feel lost and uncomfortable, but most of the time I find myself having a great time, making new friends, and learning new things. As far as I’m concerned, that’s a more valuable part of travel than seeing pyramids.

4. Focus on the little things.

I find, the more I travel, the less I care for typical touristy things. Sure, lots of these things are famous attractions for a reason, but I no longer beat myself up if I miss one or two (or sixteen, depending on the place). Usually, the guidebook attractions are swarming with people (this becomes especially true in Europe), and, while impressive, can feel like a one-hit-wonder. It’s nice to see, but then it’s over. I’ve seen so many tourists storm through an attraction, taking photos every two seconds, not stopping to consider anything or even look at the thing they’re photographing so enthusiastically. (Watch people in the Vatican if you don’t believe me.) It feels empty.

Really gorgeous graffiti in Colonia Roma. As much as I like museums and such, I think outdoor art installations (whether “legal” or not) are far more interesting. Art should be contextual and integrated into daily life. México City is full of great museums, but I liked the series of coffee cups installed outside the museum better.

I’m finding more value in taking a six-hour walk through a city, getting lost and finding interesting signs, buildings, or things happening. I’ve discovered that I love urban parks of all shapes and sizes and beautiful, multi-level bookstores (I’ve been to #4 and #6!). I really enjoy finding a perfect little café to work away my day in. Long-term travel isn’t so much about the awe-inspiring or the impressive as it is about the everyday.

5. Remain flexible.

This is, above all, my most important rule when travelling, living, or navigating relationships. Things will always fail in unexpected ways, especially when you’re in constant motion. You need to be super-flexible in order to make it work. Every time I embark on another long strange trip, I change the rules up, adjusting the formula until I hit on something that works.

If you want stability, stay home. If you want adventure, learn to adapt.

This doesn’t properly capture the chaos of Mexico City, but imagine that there are a few million people jammed into tiny streets overflowing with street vendors and old buildings. I’ve left the orderly world I lived in behind; there’s no room for rigidity here!

San Diego, from my hostel bedroom window in Gaslamp. If you’re looking for a nice place to stay with surprisingly shoddy internet, the rooms at the HI hostel were actually rather lovely. I miss that bed.

I’ll admit I expected it from xenophobic Americans. (Sorry, America! You’re great! Travel more, okay?) What surprised me was that, as I got closer to the border and found myself the only white girl on a trolley crammed with Mexicans heading home, even they started asking me if I was in my right mind. I’ll point out here that they were busy being super friendly and helpful, helping me manoeuvre my sixteen tonnes of luggage around. But for whatever reason, everyone seems surprised at my decision to live 100km from the notorious border for two months.

It sunk in. I tried as much as possible to remind myself that a lot of travel alerts are xenophobic hooey, and that millions of people live out their lives in northern Baja with no troubles whatsoever. I’ve done a lot of travelling, some of it to places many would consider “dangerous”, and often these places were my favourites. (Sarajevo, with its two million exploded landmines and its gorgeous wounded beauty, is a notable example.) In all my travels, I’ve only twice had anything really bad or dangerous happen to me, one of which was a mere pick-pocketing that lost me an iPhone. Ultimately, far more horrible things have happened to me in the city I call home than have in foreign countries.

Sixty miles south, Ensenada looks like a different world. Seriously, I can’t wear heels unless I’ve got a ride. (I just wear my “practical” walking shoes, which are wedges.) What is becoming of me? Also, I like to pretend this taco stand is called “Sarah” even though it isn’t quite. It’s one of my landmarks so I know what street is mine, since it’s not signposted at this intersection.

I’ve always believed it’s a matter of awareness, and that’s something I try to cultivate as I explore new places. Ideally, a foreign environment forces you into a state of heightened awareness. I pay more attention to what’s happening around me when I’m travelling, often because I’m usually a visible minority. There aren’t a whole lot of extremely white redheads in little dresses in Mexico, and I stand out. I’m also generally carrying about $2300 worth of electronics on me at any given time, and I’m aware that the combination makes me an easy target.

There was this day last week when I was walking along the sidewalk, and ahead of me were a group of men casually swinging baseball bats. Logically, I knew they were probably just waiting to go play baseball, but my brain wired itself up into paranoia mode. I suppose the “safe” thing to do would have been to cross to the other side of the street, but I don’t believe in giving in to fear when it’s irrational. Instead, I gritted my teeth, turned off my music, and walked through them, all with stomach-turning visions of a bat cracking into my skull dancing through my head.

This little girl is the most dangerous person I’ve come across so far in Mexico. I’m not quite sure why she’s so pleased with her knife, or why the butterflies aren’t running away from her manic bellbottom-wearing weapon-yielding ways, or why the hell she’s on the side of this building, but I really like her. The type is pretty great, too.

Of course, nothing came of it, and as I’ve acclimatized to Ensenada, I’ve become less paranoid, without losing a sense of vigilance. I’ve also come to realize that—much as I’d expected—the reports of these parts of Mexico being so dangerous are largely unfounded. Sure, it’s different. There’s a military man standing outside the government building, right next to the hospital, with an AK-47. I saw a truck pulled over on the highway, its entire front assembly lifted up to look for drugs hidden within the engine block—apparently they’ve cracked down on drug barons in Tijuana, so many of them have begun to migrate south. And much of the city looks dangerous when you’re used to the sterility of Canada or the States—the sidewalks are broken and haphazard, houses are unkempt, and things are generally in a lesser state of repair. Most houses are gated-in, and many have bars across their first-floor windows. The bathroom of a cafe I frequent looks a little like a gulag, especially at night when the light is so dim I can’t see myself in the mirror. At first glance, it’s easy to mistake a lower standard of living for danger, but that correlation isn’t in all cases true.

Ultimately, part of what I like about Mexico is its rough-around-the-edges quality. I love that it isn’t perfect. I love that you can see where its weathered, and that things are a little bit more chaotic and haphazard than I’m used to. And in spite of wandering around late at night down empty streets, in spite of getting drunker than I ought on too many tequila shots, in spite of being such a blazingly obvious gringa, I haven’t had any problems whatsoever. In fact, people here have been exceptionally nice to me—much nicer than they were in the airport in Chicago or the pub in San Diego.

While Ensenada isn’t as picturesque as other (generally more Spanish-colonial) cities in Latin America, it has its charms amid the dust and rubble.

I’d hate to think that I miss out on learning new things due to unfounded fears, and I’m glad that I didn’t listen to everyone who basically told me going to Mexico was a death sentence. I’ve yet to be kidnapped by roving gang—instead spend my days eating delicious food, basking in actual sunshine, and discovering new things! In a new place, even the tiniest everyday acts are adventures. I’m here to explore.

I’m really, really, really excited—but I’m also utterly terrified.

Apparently Google Maps can’t calculate the directions between Halifax, NS and Halifax NS if you take the insane route.

I’ve been planning this for a while, but of course I’m nowhere near to ready. I haven’t even so much as looked at my suitcase yet, in spite of best intentions, and I leave in around fourteen hours. I have a couple of leads on apartments in Ensenada, but nothing concrete. Everyone and their dog wants to see me or send me emails, so I’m running about like a headless chicken and prioritizing based on fleeting feelings. I probably won’t sleep at all tonight, and I’m guessing I’ll be hung over on my plane.

And of course my brain is just going crazy. What if it doesn’t work? What if I’m miserable? What if my phone is stolen and I spill scotch on my computer again? What if I can’t find anywhere to live? What if I get sick? What if all my clients abandon me for being a wild vagabond? It’s hard to turn off the paranoid questions once they get started, and sometimes the uncertainty of it all is enough to drive me batty.

And of course I just realized that in all the excitement of learning more language-bits and plotting out maps, I’ve forgotten to tell most everyone I’m going across the world for nine or so months. Whoops! My five-month tour of South America last year went by so smoothly (well, mostly) that it doesn’t seem all that important anymore—my clients know now, that even if I’m in a different continent I’m available and working. Most of them only communicate with me via email anyway. I did just get an email from a client asking me if I could meet up on Thursday, which obviously won’t be happening unless they meant “in Mexico”, but I’m hoping that everyone realizes I’m just as reliable, if not more so, when I’m working from a cafe in Croatia than I am when working from my couch in Canada.

What I’m most scared of is not having a business anymore when I finally get back.

But ultimately, I think if I’m not scared, I’m doing something wrong. I’ve always made it a rule to do all the things that scare me—sometimes because they scare me—and as a result I get to be stronger and have a life that’s full of crazy adventures. I make my own rules and determine how I want to experience the world, rather than following a preordained set of steps. A few years ago, I decided I wanted to travel the world, and I’ve been testing the waters with trips that get progressively longer and more involved.

And now, I will literally be going across the world. Sometimes I forget how wildly lucky I am, but today, on the cusp of a new adventure, absolutely petrified, I remember.

It wasn’t until we’d hit Bangor, Maine on the second day that I realized just how insane of an idea that was.

For starters, when I say “motorcycle”, I don’t mean a cushy touring bike with backrests, stereo speakers, massive windshields, luggage racks, and padded seats. This was a beast of a superbike, with a tiny little triangular seat on the back that looks like a miniature rocket. I jammed all of our vital belongings–two computers, several pairs of shoes (Excessive maybe, but it can’t come as a surprise), my flat-iron, three books, clothing–into my giant orange backpack and strapped it to my back. The effect was as though I’d gained a 30lb hunchback, and my balance was thrown so out of whack that climbing up on the bike was roughly akin to mounting a nine-foot tall horse with a broken leg. After an hour, my ass ached like I’d never felt before, and my feet would keep going numb. By the end of the trip, I had friction burns on my thighs and back pain that lasted for days, along with a giant smile on my face.

It was most assuredly one of the most insane, intense, incredible things I’d ever done.

Yep. This thing. I may as well have ridden a rocketship. It was also hot as hell, so every time we stopped I’d strip off the moment I clambered down and fling my things all over the place, as evidenced here.

Things I think I can’t do

When the constant pain wasn’t distracting me, I was busy being terrified. Three deer standing at the edge of the road waiting to jump out and kill me. Taking turns at 100 and leaning 45 degrees with the bike. Flying into my driver during an emergency stop coming into the city. Foggy night riding while a thunderstorm lit up the sky around us. Lane-splitting between trucks. Construction coming out of nowhere. Other cars cutting and swerving in. I’m a nervous passenger. There were so many times when all I wanted to do was say, “Listen. I cannot do this anymore. Drop me off at the nearest exit, and I will hitchhike my way home. Thanks for the ride!” By day four, when we needed to make good time, and the riding was getting intense, and the wind blast was so crazy I was convinced I was going to be pushed off that tiny little seat, I was verging on downright miserable. The only thing that got me through was sheer determination.

That determination—less charitable people would call it “bull-headedness”—has gotten me through so much. Earlier this summer, I went to Cape Breton with a friend. We found this charming place where you walk through the woods, clamber down a cliff using a system of ropes, cross through a rumbly river, and swim in ice-cold saltwater through a cavern until you reach this lagoon amid the rocks. Above it, there’s a cave in the side of the cliff, and more ropes. The boys who had gone the day prior told us we’d need lots of upper-body strength to pull ourselves up. One of them had even needed to be pushed up.

Of course, I figured I wouldn’t be able to make it. Possessing an extra x chromosome already predisposes me to be rather lacking in the upper-body department, and my twice-broken wrists of last year put me at something of a disadvantage. I remember perching atop one of the rocks, about to jump into the icy lagoon, looking up at the cave in the cliff and being convinced I’d never make it.

Then I gritted my teeth, pulled everything in my body together, and I made it! I’m certain it was that stubbornness, not any hidden reserves of strength, that fuelled my success. I’m also pretty sure that’s how I’ve structured the entirety of my life.

Things that scare me

Breaking both my wrists last year made me pretty skittish about my vulnerability. Being in a couple of car crashes in quick succession when I was eighteen made me an extremely nervous passenger. As a general rule, I very much dislike things that are beyond my control.

Obviously, riding pillion on a motorcycle is sort of a double-whammy for me. But I’m quite certain that forcing yourself to face things you fear makes you a stronger person. As a result, anytime I think “Oh, gracious. That sounds scary.” or “That sounds hard. I wonder if I’m capable of doing it?”, I take it as a sign that I must do it. Learning to ride a motorcycle (I have a license now!)? Moving to South America for five months? Going ziplining? Life modelling? Bring it on.

And of course, running a business is one of these things. I’m amazed that I’ve been doing this for so long and I’m still terrified of it and convinced I can’t do it at all. What if I mess things up and ruin my reputation? What if I get jerked around and can’t pay my bills anymore? What if the stress drives me totally insane and I end up wandering about aimlessly, muttering about em-heights and kerning?

Running a business is one of the scariest things I’ve ever done, and it never stops being terrifying.

Being a brave little toaster

Facing fears in other areas of your life forces you to become stronger and more self-assured. That sense of determination—the “I don’t know if I can do this, but I’m damn well going to try as hard as I possibly can”—is enough to push you to do everything you can in order to make it happen. I think, ultimately, I would have killed my business had I not started pushing myself to confront fears in other aspects of my life.

I’m a big fan, however, of pushing boundaries incrementally. If you suddenly dive into something terrifying, it’s easy to become paralyzed by fear, and no longer retain the ability to respond in an agile way when things change, as they invariably do. It’s important to push through things you’re afraid of, and things you don’t believe you’re capable of doing, but you can’t allow yourself to become locked up by them if you take on too much at once. It’s a fine balance.

It’s for this reason that I keep ramping up my adventures. I’m deep in planning mode (by which I mean “vaguely thinking about from time to time”) for my next crazy adventure, which is shaping up to involve a few different continents. By pushing things a little further every time I do them, my brain starts learning that it can handle whatever challenges I can throw at it. I stop being apprehensive when something crops up and I think I can’t manage it, because consistent experience tells me that I can.

This is the classy way to relax. (Don’t worry, I’m in Connecticut. The gas stations are spotless.) I was performing some variant of this sprawl, often with the backpack still strapped on, at every gas station down the eastern seaboard (when I wasn’t busy doing cartwheels to stretch out.) Coincidentally, this is also how I look when I’ve had the week from hell and have been working nonstop putting out fires, scrambling to get things done, and generally going crazy. Like this one! Good times.

And hey, if I hadn’t pushed myself to make it through this trip, I may not have learned how to smoke a cigarette while riding a motorcycle in New York City. You’re welcome, lovely clients. I do crazy things to make you happy.