Let's Go, Jane!

I’m at a crossroads in my life. At 52, I suddenly find myself free of all the things that tied me to one place and one lifestyle. Freshly divorced, I no longer have a long-term partner whose vision for the future I need to take into account. Rather than a house in the suburbs with a mortgage, I’m renting a small city apartment. My children will both be heading off to college in a year. I have two semesters left in a graduate program that will launch an entirely new career. This feels like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to completely reinvent my life. I’m in the process of changing my name back to my childhood name, and it feels in many ways like a reclaiming of an earlier self. What will be important to this version of me?

The strongest urge I have right now is for travel and adventure. I no longer have an entire lifetime ahead of me. I want to experience the world while I am still healthy and strong. So a year from now I have decided to pare down all of my personal belongings and go location-less. I will travel internationally and domestically until I find the place that feels like home, where I can settle and grow new roots. I grew up in the Boston area, raised my children in New York, and I have no idea where “home” will be for this next chapter.

They say home is not a place, it’s a feeling. And what makes a place feel like home is the people. My people are scattered in various places throughout the country. I have a long list of places I want to see. And the reality is, coming from New York where the cost of living is so high, there are many, many places in the world where I can live for a fraction of what I am currently paying for rent. Rent is my single largest monthly expense. Giving up my apartment at the end of this lease will make it possible to travel and explore other continents.

It’s a scary idea, letting go of my home base. But it’s also exhilarating. I joined a Facebook group for digital nomads over 50, and every day I’m inspired by their stories of working remote jobs from beaches and mountaintops. Life is so short. And the world is vast. I look around my apartment, full of IKEA furniture that I bought and assembled in those painful first weeks after leaving my marital home. I could walk away from 90% of my material possessions, and it would feel like a relief. I already walked away from so many possessions when I moved in, this is just a continuation.

I will spend the next year reading and researching and making a wishlist of places I want to visit. I’ll take shorter trips and learn how to pack minimally and how to book travel for points and miles. I’ll take road trips and overnight adventures. There is a whole world out there, and I can’t wait to see where life takes me next!