BootsnAll Travel Community

I've been telling myself (and others) that I'd be leaving to Europe around end of March. Well, the time's coming FAST and as the deadline approaches I'm feeling like I'm not ready for this. I can hopefully buy the tickets using my free miles - but that will only take me to London. Then I can/could settle there, or move about. I've thought about going to Spain to go through a month long intensive spanish flamenco guitar class, then 'backpack' through France and on to Amsterdam, where my cousin is and where I'd like to live for a while.

Sounds like a good plan right? But this isn't in so much a backpacking trip, or even a RTW trip - I'm just getting the hell out of San Jose and home and an ex gf, and into the unknown. I am running away from my past, and I am chasing my future - I just don't know what it is, but I know it's not here. This is not something 'temporary' where you go out there and come back to your regularly scheduled life. This is my life - out there. And I don't know what to expect, and really, there is no goal (nor I should expect life to have some endgame result...)

Some of the normal fears are common to travellers - my main one is - I'm scared I'll 'fail' - go out there, rent a place, start living there and then..find no purpose, find no friends, loneliness strikes, I start missing terribly home, and come back, defeated. I couldn't cut it.

I hate to admit to my lack of experience, but I've never left home before - as in, move out, like so many kids here in the US do at the age of 18. Back in Portugal, and even my folks are of the belief that you move out when you get married (I recently read an article that says Italian men do the same and that article painted them as momma's boys - well..) the marriage thing isn't gonna happen any time soon now, and I can't imagine being 30 and being living with the folks I feel like I'm 18 so maybe this is my time...

Just a lot of things going on - and can't say my folks really understand it, and my friends are just blase' about it - a general unhappiness with being here in SJ, a certain wanderlust about travelling, a return to 'home' (i lived in Portugal for 12 years), a move away from a long term romance that just about messed me up, a challenge to myself, getting away from the corporate machinery of the US, and like WOW, that are a lot of things riding on this trip!!!... Talk about pressure.

So yeah, terrified about what lies ahead.

OK, Rogerio...the time has come to be a MAN....

You know you don't have a choice now...you would never forgive yourself....listen to someone who did it just short of a year ago....there will be times you will wonder if youve done the right thing...& there will be times you KNOW you have...!

Take it a step at at time...first, you wanna go learn flamenco guitar..OK have you read Driving over Lemons & A parrot in the pepper tree by Chris Stewart...he goes to Andalucia, buys some shit old farm & goes to Seville to learn Flamenco guitar...buy em both, lap em up & live your dreams...you know now is the time ....Youve got an army of supporters online (even though we're computer generated)

Worry about the rest later...concentrate on chapter one of YOUR NEW LIFE !

& remember to have fun....

I'm really just a kid in a grown up body....

Excuse my language but bollocks Rogerio....

youre ready believe me....we're all insecure bastards at heart....when you need reassurance just go to www.bootsnall.com

What stiv said...

As someone else around here put it so perfectly not too long ago, "There's no wrong reason to leave San Jose." Yes, your adventure is bigger (and scarier) than most because you're looking for it to help define you. One way or another, it will. And that's a good thing. Congratulations on your courage!

Travis

shit NT said something nice about me...

Rogerio...we'll still be bickering on this site wherever you are.....

Good for you Rogerio and once you get over your first night on the road...you'll be all good. Email the insiders before you go for extra encouragement

Thanks everyone - I have to buy my ticket by the end of today if I want to benefit from 'double miles awards' for my frequent flyer program...nothing like a little pressure to get your bootay in motion.

Ultimately this is the same thing that happened when I made the decision to quit my job last september (the details of which I posted under corporate wasteland). If I had stayed there, I would have been stuck working 10 hours a day and dreaming all along of what else/where else i could be doing. Now that I can finally put my day dreams into reality, I'm anxious, funny how ironic it can be, huh?

R,

Success and failure are just words...its a relative comparision between the two. U are being very brave and I at least admire ur courage for doing this. Life is not easy..its not meant to be. So take a chance and see what happens.Am sure slowly but surely you will manage to find the peace...but first you have to try and take the first step which you are. pat yourself and take a plunge.