So when I left the United States, I was in a fantastic spot. I had a job that paid ok, I was in a relationship, paid off my student loans, ran a half marathon, and was spending most of my time with friends. Now that I’ve had a month in New Zealand, how am I doing? Well…
Things unplanned
So for this trip, I had spent a year planning. I asked myself if it was feasible and figured I could make it work. It is a growth opportunity. My biggest oversight was that it is the holiday season. I wanted a year of two summers and a year where I could celebrate Christmas in the Summer and New Year’s Eve in a foreign country. And… It was fine. It was nothing crazy and honestly it would have been better to have spent that time back home. I could’ve had an extra couple months to nurture my relationship and I think the holidays are always better spent with friends and family. That is the difficult part about this trip, being completely on my own. It does not matter how much charm you have in this world, it is hard to completely uproot everything and take a risk. Good decision? Bad decision? Impossible to say. Everything has a trade off, last year I did not expect to be such a good year for me but it was. So to leave that behind was difficult but New Zealand is a once in a lifetime opportunity. So we’re here now. My biggest obstacle has been everything is closed for the holidays, which has made finding work extremely difficult. So you take an already big change and add sitting around in a foreign country for a couple weeks while eating into your savings and it can add a bit of stress; I’ve been mostly holiday on this holiday working visa and my hope is in a month I’m a bit more settled. Hence, if I could do it over, I would have left mid January; a chapter turning in a foreign country sounds great on paper but it’s a lot messier than you’d expect.
Looking Forward
So this year is going to be a year of looking forward. If the last few weeks have taught me anything, it’s that I have a lot of insecurity. What better place to work through my insecurities than abroad? I’ve had to adapt and life seems to be moving forward, slowly. And hindsight is 20-20. A “proper” relationship was new to me before I left, so I shouldn’t be too hard on myself if it ended so that I could pursue this dream of mine. My birth defect hasn’t bothered me too much since I’ve been here but if I take photos I tend to get really self-conscious. This will also be a year of not being too hard and just going with the flow so we shall see how that goes. I just need to have faith in the decisions I make and not so worried about making the “wrong” choices.
Dumb Things I’ve done while I’ve been here
Speaking of not being too hard on myself, I thought it’d be fun to go over some really stupid things I did.
- The first would be taking my phone out in the middle of a rainstorm! Guess what happened. The charging port got water damaged! And thus I got to watch my phone’s battery drain as I got ready to hop on a 12 hour bus ride from Auckland to Wellington. The good news is I was able to barely make it to my address. I bought a wireless charger to keep my phone going for a bit longer and then I officially retired my phone after purchasing a new one. The bad news is I had to buy a new phone. And it was the Fan Edition of the Samsung Galaxy S23, which basically means it is prone to scratching, which I learned the hard way. Albeit, the scratches aren’t horrible but I went a week without a screen protector and even being careful, scratches were unavoidable. If I could do it over, I’d buy the S22 and go with a lower data phone plan; I lose the special contract bonus but in the long run it would’ve been a better deal.
- I drank too much in Auckland. And by drank too much, I mean a lot. I spent with reckless abandon and that cut into my savings like there was no tomorrow. I also ate out quite a bit, which did not help my wallet. It was fun but I wish I had done a little more planning into doing more day trips and maybe only eating out once a day rather than twice a day.
- I kept my phone plan with an international add-on. Seemed smart at the time. Keep the phone plan and worry about cancelling overseas. Not so. It would have been better to have transferred my number to google voice and just relied solely on wifi to access the internet. A vacation, international plans could work just fine, but living abroad I should have done a bit more planning as it could have saved me a headache when I got here. I had to buy a vpn to access google voice and then port my US number from Verizon and even now I do not know if it’s fully cancelled as it is a lot more difficult to call overseas than at home.
Insights Gained
A few key takeaways from the trip so far:
- No plan is perfect, so don’t fret if the plan changes
- Don’t dwell and always ask for what you want, you won’t know if you don’t ask
- Be proud of the decisions you make and there are no wrong choices
- Believe it will all work out
- Be grateful of every moment you have, life is about doing, not thinking.
The Goal
The goal is to find myself. Even when I was doing well this last year, I felt like something was missing. And while my last couple weeks have been far from perfect, that is exactly the point. I have spent so much time trying to make my world perfect that I have forgotten how to simply live and experience life. So for better or worse, I am here now, on the road less traveled, and I can only hope that will make all the difference.
Expect more articles on the way. My writing has slowed down as I take an easier approach to life but I’m sure I’ll have plenty to talk about such as my visit to the shire and what it’s like living with a bunch of other people. Stay tuned and as always, thanks for reading!
To the Moon 