The Curse of The Gypsy

Recently I have become quite exhausted by what seems to be the main driving in force in my life- to live everywhere and see everything.

I have always had an insatiable desire to travel. I'm not sure if it's because, as a Sagittarius, I am labeled a wanderer or because my sister and I would fly to Europe to visit our father or drive cross country with our mother every summer and its a force of habit but I have an innate restlessness that hinders me from enjoying 100% of my surroundings in the moment, because I know that with time I will want to pick up and experience somewhere new.

I can't even count how many different apartments and houses I have lived in in the past 30 (stings every time!) years and along with that the countless jobs to go with each new location. I will low-ball at about 20 each but it may even be closer to 30 at this point. When I was 24, tired of my sedentary life in a NYC cubicle, I decided to backpack across Europe by myself. An ironic personality trait of mine is that I like to be independent so I often choose to do things by myself and then immediately get lonely and feel sorry for myself that I am alone. Hmm. It was during this life altering trip that I realized that what I would really like to do is to live everywhere in the world for a couple of years (OK, maybe not everywhere.. we can cross off anywhere where it is super-hot all year long, too religious, where women have no rights, there are tarantulas, war, or dictatorships).

I'm not one of those travelers that is content rushing from major city to major city, seeing all of the attractions that my guidebook tells me to see simply so I can hurry there, touch a wall and say I had been there. When I was in Florence there was a girl in my hostel visiting Europe from South Korea. Whereas I had given myself 10 days to soak up the town-perhaps a few too many but I was in no rush- She had taken a train up from Rome that morning (5 hours), in her one day in Florence she was not only going to see all of Florence, but also take trips to nearby towns Siena and San Gimignano before leaving the next morning for Milan (another 5 hours away). This blew my mind. I don't see the point in that. If you have one day, pick somewhere you can enjoy, checking off a list will never give you a proper feel for a place. 

After traveling for a couple of months I decided to live in Italy because I had fallen in love with everything about it. And even while there, making amazing friends from all over the world, learning a new culture and language and seeing some of the most beautiful scenery I had ever seen, I didn’t feel like Italy was where I could see myself forever. And that’s the problem, I don’t see myself as being anywhere forever. When I try to envision my future and a place where I'll eventually have a house and a solid foundation, I literally cannot think of anywhere where I would like to live forever. And then I start to get a bit panicky and stressed at the thought of being stuck in one place. While other people would love to settle down and set roots, I flee in the opposite direction of that permanence. When my time was prematurely cut off in Italy and I returned to New York. Throughout the duration of my stay in New York, I wanted desperately to return to Europe so every apartment I rented and every living situation I had was very temporary because I wanted to be able, at any moment, to pick up and move. This led to four years of squatting, couch hopping, and subletting before I decided to pick up and move elsewhere. In retrospect I had had a great time in NYC, I made great friends, worked at an awesome hotel chock full of celebrities, and went to cool places but I couldn’t let myself enjoy it because I wanted to be somewhere else.

I then left that life and went to live in Florida. This time was not as successful. I didn’t feel like I really connected with the people, the pay was low and the jobs humbling and so after thinking I would stick it out longer and try to make a life for myself for a couple of months, I got a call that there may be a job for me in London so I jumped at the opportunity. In returning to New York (albeit temporarily), the place I realized I had missed so much while away, I felt really disconnected from everyone and everything. I was only gone 3 ½ months but it felt like I hadn’t left at all, only I was no longer a part of everything and that is a hard feeling to have. They say you can never go back but if I'm constantly moving locations in the future, then it means that I don’t really have a home base, and don’t really have a place to go back to. 

The thing is, no matter how hard and gut wrenching it is to say goodbye to the many amazing people I have met along the way, it is my choice and my need to keep moving that changes everything. Everyone moves on with their lives and I am on a seemingly endless quest for the perfect place for me. As I scratch more and more cities off the list, I wonder if such a place exists or if I will always be pushed by this desire to experience something new. In doing this can I ever have long lasting, meaningful relationships or will my life be an endless relocating-making friends-to say goodbye to them- and start again somewhere else- cycle. It's exhausting and it is hard. Very hard. So with the prospect of moving to London next week I am equal parts excited and nervous. While my goal has been for quite some time to move there, I love the energy, the music and fashion scene and everything just seems cooler with an English accent, the thought of once again starting from scratch, the long painful process of getting to know people, slowly making friends and establishing a life and the fear that after a certain amount of time my desire to move on will creep up on me and force me to begin the process again, elsewhere scares me. While I feel equal parts Stevie Nicks' Gypsy and Chocolat's Juliet Binoche I wonder if I'll ever get to be Julia Roberts at the end of Eat, Pray, Love. Sigh.