The final countdown

In one month I will leave the life as I have known it for the past three years behind me, probably for good, and start a chapter. A chapter I have been waiting for quite a while now. Waiting for something you know is going to happen, can be pretty exciting, but waiting for something you really want to happen, but is uncertain it ever will happen, that can feel dreadful and sometimes quite hopeless. Dramatic as it may sound, it really feels like a final countdown for me.

Three years doesn’t even sound that long now that I think of it. But for me personally, it felt a lot longer than that at times. They’ve been three important and valuable years wrapping up the ten years before that when I was figuring out how to be an adult in this world. These years are better known as “my turbulent twenties”. One thing I always knew for sure though, was that I always felt a little different than the rest. At least from the people around me. The odd duck, who was walking a similar path, but a divergent one.

Let me break it down into 3 important factors that distinguished me from the rest:

• There was always an age difference. Somehow, I was always the older or the younger one of the group I hung out with. I only started college at the age of 20, which is two years later than the average student in Belgium and I only graduated at the age of 29 (!).
  

>> Little segway: “OMG, 9 YEARS OF COLLEGE?!” Yes, I only finished my college degree in hotel management at the age of 29, but I also did a different study for 3 years, which I didn’t finish and I took 1 gap year traveling to Australia during my student life. I’m not saying I was a perfect student, it still took me 5 instead of 3 years to get my bachelor’s degree, but it’s a little more nuanced than you might have thought at first.<<

I never minded the age thing though, because like my mom, who on a regular basis forgets her own age, who generally doesn’t care about the concept of age, I also don’t care about the concept of age so much. In the end, the age difference was never a big deal for anyone, but it can’t be denied it was there.

• I was always “the single one”. And with being the single one, I was also always the one responsible for the fun single stories. Whenever I hung out with my friends, I somehow always had a story to tell about that one drunken experience with that one guy, or another ghosting story about that other guy. I will spare you the details, but I’ll tell you this: every time I mention to someone I’ve been single for about 12 years, eyes tend to go wide and this is the common response: “You’ve been single all those years! Does that mean you never…?”. OF COURSE it doesn’t mean I never…! Hence: plenty of fun single stories for my friends and potentially a book. Which is something I’ve been considering to write for a while now, but that’s something for another time.
  

Anyway, moving on 😅.

• Not being able to relate to anyone else’s future plans. While my friends were starting to have serious relationships, talking about living together, buying houses, getting married and becoming moms , I was still studying, traveling and figuring out my life.

So, the three years I mentioned before, started while I was living in the US early 2020. And OMG, how coincidental, this also happens to be the year COVID happened.

I had to return home from a 12-month traineeship in the US, only 8 months into the program and let me tell you this: my plans for what was going to happen after the traineeship, if COVID hadn’t happened, looked very similar to the plans I have right now: I was going to live with my brother in August of that year and save money to travel to New Zealand on a work & holiday visa and build a life for myself there.

But back to what actually happened: in March 2020, I decided to terminate my traineeship in the US earlier than planned and return home after COVID started to become a great deal in Europe. I moved in with my brother earlier than anticipated and got an office job. At this point, it was pretty much reading the tea leaves about what was still going to be possible then and in the future. The feeling of uncertainty started to grow there and then, but it still all felt temporarily and manageable.

With the job I had back then, it was possible to work remote and that felt like a little freedom again. In between the heavy lockdowns it was possible to travel within Europe and that’s what I did for a little bit. During my third trip to Portugal, which was supposed to last a full month (January 2021), I decided to go home early and move back to Antwerp, 1,5 hours away from my hometown and job, and work remote from there. Antwerp is the city where I studied and where most of my friends still live. And this is the part where I started to get confused about my life goals. Almost all of my friends were in a relationship at this point, had a steady job and their own house. That urge to seek freedom I always had before COVID, faded away in the background and I honestly started to believe this was the time for me to also get a stable life and settle down.

After one year of living in Antwerp, I noticed I wasn’t getting all the happiness out of that living situation. My job got very challenging at times and I was needed in the office more often so I asked my brother if I could move back in with him and I did.

During this time I also dated someone close to home and I really thought this was going to be it. I was back in my home country, doing a job where I grew in titles and in salary, I was dating someone who bought a house and I tricked my mind into thinking this was it for me now. This was the situation society expected from me to be in and I believed for a second I was happy with it.

In May 2022 that guy ghosted me after 6 months of dating and I wasn’t happy at my job anymore. I felt so hurt and misunderstood and this was the perfect time to reflect on my life and start looking back at what my lifetime goals once used to be: travel, be free, not having to depend on anyone and go wherever the wind would take me. And this gave me an intense tingle of happiness in my stomach.

I immediately applied for my New Zealand visa at the last moment I possibly could (I turned 31 one month after), booked a flight to Melbourne to visit a friend there and the energy started to flow again. I found my true self again.

This story turned out longer than I anticipated, but I am really glad it came out like this. It helps to reflect on things so much. It is even more clear for myself now why things happened like they happened and why I always felt like an odd duck.

My message to everyone who reads this is: you can always find your way (back) to your true self, BUT it almost inevitably means you will go through a tough time first. And that’s really okay. Feel the feelings, experience them all and then start to be honest about the things that you know make you happy and decide whether you want to act on that. It’s quite simple, it’s just not so easy.

My countdown has officially started. One month from now I am back where my love for traveling took my breath away for the first time and I am so excited.

Bye for now!

Xoxo Domi