Swagger & Soul | Living Like A Gypsy | Sarah’s Story

I’ve been living like a gypsy since September 2011. Following the break up of my marriage in 2007, I finally got the divorce papers through in May 2011 and found myself asking the question… What do I want?

I started writing in my journal daily, sat on the back step when the sun was shining and questioning everything about how I was living my life at the time.

The relationship I was in was not working for me, keeping a roof over our heads for me and the kids (young teenagers then) was an endless struggle, my self esteem was at a real low and I felt exhausted.

What was the point? WHAT DO I WANT?

I realised I hadn’t had any dreams of my own for a really, really long time. I had no strong desires for anything and that made me feel sad. Who am I? What do I like? There must be more to life than this.

I kept writing and decided to stop censoring my thoughts and just get them down on paper. No matter how silly, or unachievable my sensible voice said they were. I’d just play. Let things flow.

Then some thoughts decided to stick around, reappearing in my journal and I started to ask myself the question, ‘How can I?’ instead of ‘I wish…’, or ‘I’d like to…’ immediately followed by a ‘but I can’t because…’

How can I?

Asking, ‘How can I?’ put my subconscious to work. Ideas started popping in my head. Some were scary, some felt inevitable and so I started to I started to take action.

I ended the relationship.

I decided I’d reallllly like to experience a juice retreat but didn’t have any cash for that. So I asked myself how can I have that experience?

I went online (of course!) and stumbled across a site called Workaway.info that wasn’t just for young people to go off and have adventures — it’s for people of any age who want to experience something new or to contribute in some way and volunteer in exchange for a bed to sleep in and food to eat. There’s a huge choice of things to do in places all around the world.

So I searched for retreats and one popped up in Portugal that looked very spiritual and lovely. It wasn’t too far from the UK so I could come home easily if needed and I decided to just send them an email and see what happened…

As it turns out, they did need someone and amazingly liked the look of me. Only thing is, they ideally wanted someone who could stay up to three months.

Oh. Three months.

How could I do that when I care for the kids? I also wouldn’t be able to pay rent while I was away, so what about our home? Our stuff? I dismissed the idea.

Well, I tried to.

I wrote some more to get the whirlwind out of my head and try and make sense of it. I had an overwhelming feeling that this was the right thing for me to do. It was insistent, it would not go away.

So I thought ‘fuck it’. I’m going to speak to the kids and see how they feel and then take it from there. If they’re dead set against it, then I won’t do it.

It was an awful moment in my life. I felt like the worst mother in the world but I told them about how I was feeling and the opportunity that had come up and that it would only be three months… My son looked at me and said that he just wanted me to be happy and to do it. My daughter was not impressed and stormed out of the house.

I felt so guilty for having asked and for considering it but it still felt like it was something I had to do. For me.

Looking back now, I can see how depressed I was from the break up of my marriage and I marvel at how I’d managed to hold things together for as long as I did. I was so scared at the thought of having a mental breakdown like my own mother had, that I’d just pushed on.

I’m stronger than I think I am

And you are probably stronger than you think you are.

Anyway, back to my story.

After the initial shock, my daughter came round to the idea too. I assured them I’d be back in three months, before Christmas, and can live with me again at that point.

Next I had to talk to my ex-husband and his fiancee. My relationship with them was a bit umm.. volatile at times back then, but I made myself swallow my pride and fears and ask them, and surprisingly, they said yes straight away.

I remember thinking, ‘Oh shit, this means I’ve got no reason to not do this now.’

I emailed the retreat to tell them the news and got things underway to pare my life down.

I helped the kids sort through their stuff into what they wanted to take to their Dad’s and what I could sell, throw or donate. And then started to do the same for all my shite. It was very cathartic throwing away ancient underwear I can tell you!

I got my stuff down to a suitcase and a backpack and about three boxes of stuff that my sister, Nicola, agreed to store for me. She was moving into the house when I moved out (it’s owned by our other sister, Heather) so I left her the kitchen utensils and crockery and some bits of furniture and my mattress for a bed in the spare room.

And that was me ready for the next chapter in my life.

How did it feel to part with everything?

It was bittersweet. On the one hand it felt so much lighter not having so many responsibilities or physical stuff (mind you, parting with so many books was SO hard!) but on the other, I kept torturing myself with thoughts about what this action could do to my relationship with my kids and if it will affect them negatively forever.

So off I went to Portugal and that first week was, umm, challenging. I just kept thinking…

WHAT HAVE I DONE?!

I was totally out of my comfort zone. Surrounded by people I didn’t know and even worse, discovering I’d have to cook for up to 20 people sometimes as we all took it in turns. I struggled with co-ordinating a meal for four, let alone having to conjure up something vegetarian from whatever was growing in the organic gardens for vast numbers for people.

Luckily the policy was for everyone to be grateful for whatever was served no matter what it tasted like, haha!

One of the guys there took me to one side and shared how he’d felt that first week, that he’d just wanted to get on a plane straight back to Ireland but he’d pushed through the discomfort and had now been there for four months, he kept extending his stay he loved it so much.

The internet connection was iffy to say the least, which made it really bloody hard to stay in contact with the kids and when I did manage to get through on Skype, it was often frustrating with delays or the signal dropping.

But stay I did. And eventually I found my groove and threw myself wholeheartedly in to doing whatever was needed — gardening, cleaning toilets, harvesting nuts, making beds, chatting with the guests, juicing, cooking, and making some amazing friendships.

I was lucky enough that my friend Emma (aka Miss Manifestation) came out and volunteered as well!

We’d never met in person before that time, just knew each other by chance as Emma had liked a comment I’d left on the Juicemaster Facebook page, checked out my blog and messaged me. I loved her banter on her blog at the time and that she swore online too, and we hit it off, becoming ‘virtual’ friends.

It was a real treat to meet her and in such unusual circumstances — we talked about anything and everything and even videoed it sometimes ‘cos we’re ace! lol. We’re still good friends today 🙂

Back in Blighty

So I rocked up in Sussex as promised, early December 2011 and stayed with Nicola, bracing myself to go back to normality and sort out a job and find a home for me and the kids. As it turned out, that was never to happen.

Spencer had settled into living with his Dad and step family and Chloe was more or less living with her boyfriend and his family. They said, ‘Don’t worry Mum, we’re ok where we are.’

Gulp.

I wasn’t needed any more. Well, that was the story of self pity I told myself as I coped with empty nest syndrome prematurely and felt guilty about having taken the time out at all.

The good thing about this was that the kids had re-built their relationship with their Dad and my son was at the age when he really needed that.

And as for me. Well, I was free to do whatever I wanted. Only problem was, I didn’t have a clue. I didn’t have a home, I didn’t have any income. And without any clear direction, I became a bit of a gypsy, or as people love to call it nowadays, a digital nomad.

I went back to look through what was on offer on Workaway but kind of fell into doing house and pet sitting for friends. I then joined a few petsitter sites but the most active one was TrustedHousesitters.com and between existing contacts and these sites, I travelled to Spain and around the south of England, often down to Devon and Cornwall before deciding that was just too far away from my family and I just felt lonely.

Whilst looking after people’s homes and pets I’d also help people out with their WordPress websites and tidying up their social media presence to present a coherent brand, so I had some money coming in.

Living out of a suitcase and eventually, saving up for the luxury of a cheap second hand car to carry all my worldly possessions around with me. Much easier than lugging it around public transport like a little donkey, I can tell you!

What’s normal anyway?

I would worry occasionally about not being normal. Not a normal mother, or normal member of society. I’d stepped outside of what I knew about ‘how to live life and be a responsible adult’ and instead lived within my sporadic, nomadic and meagre means.

I remind myself that what really matters in my life, I have.

I have family and friends who love me. My relationship with my kids is brilliant, even though we don’t see as much of each other as I’d like, but they that’s natural with them being young adults now — it’s not just because of my lifestyle. I have somewhere to sleep and enough food to eat and clothes to wear. No bras though… but that’s another story 😉

I am starting to get the itch though to expand what I want. Push my comfort zones and think about not living life so frugally — and how I can best serve other people in order to do that.

Living the self employed feast or famine route that I have been doing is wearing thin and to be frank, I don’t think is a great role model. I want to feel like I’m really achieving something that makes life better for someone else, and in turn makes my life better too.

I want my life to mean something to me

I often think I’ve been living in pursuit of happiness but really happiness is what is felt in a moment and like everything else it comes and goes.

Being present, feeling love, laughing loudly (and boy, can I laugh loudly!) is found when I open myself to new experiences. Usually when I’ve said Yes to something, I automatically want to say No to.

So now I’ve said Yes to sharing my digital nomad life with my sister, Nicola.

And once more I’ve had to assess what I’m carrying around with me. I’ve also taken on the task of helping Nicola clear out her house. I must confess, I actually quite enjoy it — maybe I should start a business helping people do that? I could call it Shift The Shite.

To round off (this rather long) blog post, who knows where this adventure to Greece will take us both. One thing for sure, it’s pushing both of us into the unknown and that feels equally scary and exhilarating.

I hope you enjoy joining us for the ride — please leave us a comment on our blog posts, we love to hear from you whether or not you’re living like a gypsy too.