My New Favorite Thing About Being A Digital Nomad

One of the amazing benefits that comes with living a Digital Nomad lifestyle is that over time you begin to develop relationships with people all over the world. The planet feels a little smaller in all the best ways, and no matter where you happen to land there are people there you know, can spend time and create new memories with.

If you add to this phenomenon the amazingness of being part of the WordPress/WordCamp community, then there is really very few places in the world you can go and NOT feel like you’re further cultivating extended family.

This last week, Jon and I were in Miami.

Several things were going on at once for us there; I was moving my mother from Cuba to Miami to live in a long term care home for people with Alzheimer’s and we planned that to coincide with Miami WordCamp 2017. This meant that not only would I be spending time with my mom, but we would also be spending time with friends we already knew from all over the country.

Connections Matter

This week was hard for me emotionally. I still haven’t gotten my heart and mind around all the implications surrounding my mother’s illness and this new move. After over 2 years of being ‘in it’ with her and her illness, I’m still struggling with being the one to make decisions for her well being and trying to make sure my choices are the best for her.

The weeks leading up to our trip to Miami were filled with a lot of internal conflict and anxiety. I knew that we would also be doing a fair amount of socializing with our friends attending WordCamp, and I was afraid I just wasn’t going to be up for it.

Being an introvert typically means that if I’m going through something that requires a lot of emotional presence, I tend to need a lot of down time to recuperate. Downtime for me meaning silence and being alone.

That didn’t seem be the case this time. I know now, after having had such a full week, that the reason for this is that connections to people that you truly care about, enjoy and feel genuinely invested in feeds the soul.

I’m also gratefully aware of the fact that after 3 years of Jon and I traveling so much and so consistently, the community of friends we have are amazing and good people. I didn’t feel isolated in my journey, because even though we were in what is essentially a new city for Jon and I, we weren’t at all alone.

Our connections were there with us.

The Best Part Of World Travel…

It’s super common to get asked what my favorite country is, or what my favorite memory is of our constant travels. My answers change over time, but it’s a question I never like answering because more often than not my answer sounds something like, “All of it!” No one is ever satisfied with that.

I think, however, that this new thing, these connections that keep growing and deepening all over the world, is my new favorite and cherished thing about our lifestyle. Distance doesn’t matter. We have people in all sorts of places and what at first was a hardship of travel (the not having connections, family or friends in places we spent a lot of time in) has begun to turn into this beautiful blessing that just keeps growing.

I’m grateful. So so grateful. Especially this last week when things were hard, emotional and draining. Each night of hanging out with friends filled my cup and left me ready to take care of things the following day.