Is the World Really My Oyster?
I’m in a pretty severe period of uncertainty right now in my life, which many people tell me is “so exciting.” While I wish to believe them, I often find myself feeling a sense of impending doom, which I can only imagine a tightrope walker feels when the earth starts to shake.
I do think it’s exciting in a way to have infinite possibilities of where my life could go next. In a month, my life could look completely different than it does now…or it could look the same. A lot of that depends on what I do between now and then, while the rest depends on what the universe has in store for me. Will my dream agency land a new client and have a position they want to hire me for? Will I move across the country or even across the world to work there? Will I discover a new hobby or passion that fills my free time? Will I go back to studying for the LSAT to appease the hopes and dreams of my parents? As Daniel Caesar famously said (or sang), “who knows?”
For the past five months, I’ve been unemployed. Part of that time was spent living out the rest of my lease in Chicago, where I had lived over the summer for my internship. I loved Chicago. It was my first time living outside of California and also my first time living on my own. I did learn a lot about myself while living on my own (shocker) and truly fell in love with the city of Chicago. At the end of my lease, I moved back to California, where I was living with my boyfriend at the time. Come December, that relationship was over, and I was suddenly moving for the second time in less than two months. Not ideal. But everything happens for a reason. Now I’m back living at home while I continue my everlasting job search before I figure out where I’m going to move next.
A few days before my six-year relationship ended, I spontaneously booked a trip to Thailand. I had a sudden desire to take control of my life and to do the things I’d always wanted to do, even if it meant I needed to do them alone. I had never solo traveled before and had only been out of the country once before, when I was 13. Unfortunately, I was a bit of a brat at the time, so even when I was standing in the middle of some of the most famous museums in the world in Italy, the only thing I wanted was to leave and get gelato. So I wanted this to be my redemption era.
A few weeks later, I was off to Thailand. I cannot lie to you, the first two days were a little rough. Fresh out of a breakup and being all alone halfway across the world was definitely a bit of a lonely feeling. But as time went on, I gained confidence as well as a sense of pride in myself for doing this amazing thing I’d always wanted to do.
I traveled all over Thailand for two weeks. Two days before I was supposed to fly home, I decided to extend my trip another week to visit one more island with a friend I had made earlier on. I’m sure I’ll get into much more detail about everything I did, saw, and ate on that trip, but that’s not entirely what this post is supposed to be about.
Not to be cheesy, but going on that trip changed my life. Not necessarily because of any one thing that happened while I was there, but because I went. I have always been someone who doesn’t like uncertainty. I want to know exactly what is going to happen so I can make sure I’m prepared. But when I booked my flight so last-minute, that wasn’t going to be an option, and still, I thrived. I put aside my fears and did something solely for myself, and for that, I am so grateful to my past self for having the courage to buy that ticket.
I’ve been back from Thailand for a couple of weeks now and am settling into my new routine living here in my childhood home. My life is entirely different from what it was two months ago and two months before that. But that’s what makes me excited for what it will look like two months in the future. The world is my oyster full of infinite possibilities, and I’m determined to make the most of this oyster and experience all that it has to offer.
