The True (Personal) Cost of Remote Year For Me
I wrote this way back in September of 2016, when I was living in Lisbon, Portugal, and on the fourth month of my Remote Year journey. It’s been edited slightly so it’s more concise and (hopefully) makes sense even if you’ve never met me or read anything else I’ve written.
I want to dig into some of the abstract and mental cost factors that I have considered on the rough days of my program — the ones where I think about friends that left our wonderful journey early and the reasons they gave.
Let’s be honest… traveling with a tribe is tough.
Before Remote Year (RY), I had never tried to be friends with 50+ people at one time. Let alone lived with some of them, worked with most of them, and traveled with all of them.
It’s one thing to live in a housing environment with 50+ people — most of us experience that in college or university dorms — it’s a completely different thing to have those same people be (essentially) a rotating web of your co-workers, roommates, best friends, frenemies, travel buddies, and confidants. Messy is an understatement. Reality TV and sitcoms are a better depiction of our relationships than any pre-RY idea that I had of these relationships.
That’s really cool, but is it S.M.A.R.T.?
One thing that RY is really big on is Goal Setting. And I get it. We aren’t doing the hard work of planning our travel, accommodations, and WiFi access, so what do we do with all our extra time besides watching sunsets, eating a bunch of new foods, and hiking through castles? The answer is, we make professional and personal goals, then make plans to achieve them. Which is harder than it sounds — I feel like I’m constantly in a state of wanting more, but not knowing what that “more” is. So while this aspect could be a positive, more often than not, I find myself thinking of it as a negative because it stresses me out! Personal/perfectionist problem, yes, but still something I consider to be a cost of Remote Year.
I want to speak conversational Spanish and understand Spanish songs, but we haven’t been in any Spanish speaking countries yet.
I want to become friends with these people who also value travel, but I’m afraid we will end up like my study abroad friendships — great at the time, but nearly nonexistent five years later.
I want to grow in my career, but I’m paving my own path and explaining that in my year end review is tough.
I want more skills in user experience and customer research, but I barely have enough time to go grocery shopping and figure out how to do laundry.
I want to be a better big sister even when I live far away, but it’s hard to feel connected with my sisters when we are only able to use Google Hangouts, Snapchat, and Instagram to interact.
I want to figure out what my next step is on May 28, 2017, but don’t even get me started on how many options there are and how scary that date is.
Forget a 5 year plan, what country am I in tomorrow?
I am an obsessive planner. I always have been. In high school, I planned all my classes and tests to earn college credits and get into the best college I could with the best scholarship I could. In college, I poured over the course catalogs to figure out the ideal schedule for my four year degree. It was over the top and ridiculous. But it made me feel safe and in control. And no, it didn’t always go as planned, but at least I had an idea of what was next.
Cue, Remote Year. I know which cities I will call my home for each month. I know that I will have a bed and WiFi. Beyond that, I know next to nothing. My heart speeds up just thinking about it. In a bad way. And four months in, it is not as nausea-inducing as month one, but I still don’t like to think about it. I signed up for this program knowing I would be giving over control, but being a “planner” is one of my most ingrained personality traits and that’s hard to give up.
Part of my heart is still 4,150 miles away.
This is my LEAST favorite cost of RY. Especially as the holidays start coming around. I want to be in Arizona for Halloween. My grandparents and cousins will be hosting our annual “Spooky Dinner” and my little cousin B gets to take over making mummy hot dogs. Then there’s the cheesy chip dip that we call “throwup” and the powdered donuts with lifesavers and gel frosting that become “eyeballs.”
And soon after that is Thanksgiving. I’m so incredibly grateful that my other grandparents have decided to come visit Europe and will meet me in Paris for the week. I haven’t done nearly enough research into what we will fill our trip with (probably a bunch of croissants and cheese with some sights thrown in), but I’m excited! At the same time though, I will miss writing on my mom’s table runner about what I was thankful for this year. I’ll miss my dad’s mashed potatoes. I’ll miss “Black Friday shopping” with my mom and sisters — let’s be honest though, I won’t miss the shopping, but I’ll miss the “sport” of it. And the new Gilmore Girls episodes come out that day also, and I know we would watch it together. Probably in pajamas and probably eating thanksgiving leftovers.
Despite those costs, I’m still here. So let’s talk about the benefits that outweigh those costs. Like the fact that it feels amazing to be part of a true tribe.
I mentioned it above as a cost, but it absolutely deserves to be mentioned as a benefit. Never before RY have I had such an incredible support system outside of my family. It helps that we are constantly surrounded by each other so someone’s absence from an event or planned meal is quickly noticeable.
If I’m having a rough day, my instinct back at home was to call my mom or my sister and vent. But now they’re six and five hours behind me, and venting to them at 6am their time doesn’t always seem like the best way to start their days. So I ask a few of my RY friends if anyone is free to listen to my feelings — usually with some sort of food or drink involved.
Every time I’ve felt sick, hangry, anxious, or just been crying for absolutely no reason, I have felt so much love from my Darien family. One night, I was out with friends and had a weird anxiety-attack mixed with emotional-wave mixed with feeling let-down-by-my-own-expectations. In short, I was a mess for no real explainable reason. Instead of calling me crazy, I had two good friends listen to me ramble (probably incoherently). I had another friend give me advice and fix my makeup. And at least four friends asked me if I was overall okay at some point that night or the next day.
I’m not sure I’ve accurately vocalized my appreciation to those people as much as I feel it. The overwhelming love and support that our Darien family has for its members is something I’ve never felt before. And I’m glad Remote Year brought us together.
Let’s co-work!!
Prior to RY, I had always wanted to try working in a co-working space. I just didn’t have the guts to check it out. There’s something about working in a space with so many people — who are working on so many different projects — that adds inspiration and motivation to the mix. We also have a lot of professional events on our Remote Year calendar, which are great for a professional version of cultural immersion. I’m learning a lot about motivating myself to work, and also learning about all the opportunities that are available in this world.
New roommates every month = forgiveness + flexibility + new friends.
Yes, it can be hard to have roommates. But something about a one-month limit with each set of roommates makes the relationship so much easier! Instead of being nitpicky about the traits I don’t like in my roommates, I have found myself looking for their positive qualities — because one month is too short to spend even a few days upset at someone. And I’ve also found a few of my closest friends through a roommate setup. In Serbia, I was placed with two girls that I hadn’t really gotten to know. They seemed cool from our limited experiences, but I had no personal knowledge of their personalities. Turns out, they are both incredible people and I am incredibly thankful that our operations manager placed us together in our second month of the trip!
This is by no means an exhaustive list. But it’s the personal cost of MY Remote Year.
I know, it’s not balanced! I actually struggled with having 4 negatives and 3 positives while re-reading this post. But that’s real life. So even though the personal negatives are big and looming and have convinced some Remotes to end their journeys with us, I’m still glad I’m here. The cost of Remote Year is still worth it for me because I get to enjoy all the benefits.
I actually wrote another part to this post, about the monetary costs of my Remote Year — or at least the 5 months we spent in Europe and Morocco. There’s a third part too, but it’s kind of out-of-date now that Remote Year has made so many incredible additions to their program. And re-reading this made me realize that I definitely left out a 4th benefit — the TRAVEL! Duh, younger Jessica ;)
Originally published at www.lifelivedhere.com on September 30, 2016.
