T-60 Days Remaining on Remote Year

I just scootered back to Loyfa from writing and a late lunch at Karma when I looked out through a break in the trees at the early golden blue sky of sunset over the water and felt my heart tighten.

I have one day left in Koh Phangan, and then it’s off to Siem Reap on a ferry, bus, two flights, and a tuktuk to our Airbnb. I’ll spend a long weekend there to run the Angkor Wat half-marathon, and then we’ll take an overnight bus to Phnom Penh.

And then, I — we — will be in the last two months of our Remote Year, less than 60 days to go before we’re back to whatever life we want to live, on the road or back home.

Sure, we will stay friends and keep in touch, but it won’t be the same. Those same friendships that only developed and flourished thanks to continued exposure and shared experiences may lapse once the bridge of being on Remote Year is gone.

Even the people we are closest to, frequently spending days and nights and weekends with, the ones we rely on for support and adventure alike, the relationships that have made it onto the list of lifelong friends, those will change.

While we may remain in touch and forever bonded, we’ll be spread across the world. We won’t run into each other in the workspace or accommodations and have last minute meals or shared adventures pushing past our comfort zones.

I’m a nostalgic person, so this loving anxiety is a familiar feeling.

It’s not a matter of wishing Remote Year won’t end — 12 months is the right length of time for this experience, and part of me looks forward to having free reign over my life and my time and my location again.

It’s not about wanting to change the terms or extend the end date, it’s about knowing that what I’m part of is so incredibly rare and special and wonderful that I want to pinch myself ten times a day to remember to savor it all.

My senior year of college, I went through surgery, illness, breakups, a low grade, terrible weather, disappointing friendships, homesickness, and other small hardships I can’t recall now but certainly didn’t enjoy.

But I also knew that my wonderful world of Williams — enlightening and challenging academics, my experience as a varsity athlete on the crew team and racing (and winning) at a competitive level, my relationships with teammates and friends and professors, life on campus in an idyllic New England mountain town — all were coming to an end.

So it was in spite of those hardships and the excitement of the future that I held on hard with my heart that last year of school. I cherished miserable practices on Lake Onota with icy winds blowing through our spandex. I delighted in soggy cereal and pb&j sandwiches for dinner with my team. I relished cuddle puddles with friends while heartbroken. I found beauty while literally trudging uphill both ways in the snow to tutor students at the elementary school.

College ended, I happily graduated, and I moved on with jobs and living around the world, but there was a loss.

I’ve learned as much out of school as in it, but the format and teachers are quite different, as are my opportunities and media for sharing. While those same friends and I send supportive emails when needed and welcome each other with loving arms when possible, our relationship has changed and there is a distance. As far as being a competitive athlete and training, my upcoming half-marathon is my first attempt in 7 years at something that will gauge my physical fitness and require me to cross a finish line.

And so it will happen with Remote Year. We will spend the next two months alternating between planning the next chapter of our lives, creating new memories together, and feeling moments of grief and nostalgia for the loss we’re about to feel (or at least I will).

The benefit of this nostalgia, this heart-wrenching feeling that overtakes me in moments surrounded by this unexpected family or in incredible places, is that it reminds me to appreciate it. It is the runner’s high that kicks in after the challenge of starting has passed and before the final push begins. We’re not quite to saying goodbye and waking up on January 30 to a world where our family has scattered to the wind, but we’re getting closer and closer.

So I’ve got to ride this runner’s high and let my nostalgia keep me in the moment. I’ll keep writing my daily journals filled with gratitudes and memories. I’ll continue to publish posts about how much I love this crazy community and how many feelings this rollercoaster ride throws at me. I’ll try to find time to talk to as many people, individually, as possible while we can still sit face-to-face.

Try not to ask me what I’m doing next.
What’s important is what I’m doing now.

Katherine is a digital nomad, working remotely while she travels the world — on the road since June 2014. She’s a member of Remote Year 2 Battuta, living around the world with 75 other digital nomads from February 2016 to January 2017.

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