Confused

Hi Claire,

Welcome to TravelBlog.

The fact you are not in a relationship takes care of that one. Sell the house /pay off the mortgage, resign from your job and book a plane ticket. Jobs and houses will still be around for you later.

As for the age, I'd say that's an advantage - maturity but with youth still on your side. If you decide you want kids later and aren't able to have them yourself you could always adopt.

Above all, your happiness is most important, and it sounds as though you would be most happy right now over in Peru :-)
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I am completely unqualified to give anyone advise about life. Heck it took me 46 years to finally figure mine out.

I am one who has sold my house and walked away from a rather decnt paying job. We have been :on the road" for nearly five months now and never felt better in my life. I am fortunate enough to have a little pension to finince my journeys.

I am one of the fortunate ones who has figured out that I will no longer be a prisoner to the 9-5 routine and consumed with the life of material possesions and debt.

Some people think I have absolutely lost my mind and have asked what the heck I am going to do when I finish.

My simple answer is "gee I don't know". For the first time in my life, I have never felt more secure about not being secure in the future and I love it.

I'm sure the answer will come when you are rady for it. Reply to this

It sounds cheesy but follow your heart !


Your doctor sounds extremly backward. You are 31, you have all the time in the world to have children, hell most professionals hold off on having kids these days until they are much later in life then you. And they are doing that for their career! pooey, what you want to do is a much better life experiance worth putting family life on hold. How do you know that you won't meet a like minded person to fall in love with while doing what your heart appears to be telling you to do. At 31, you have all the time in the world (hopefully) and if you don't then all the more reason to get out and do what you want!
You don't want to be locked down in a job with the responsibility of a family and have it in the back of your mind that there was something you wanted to do that you let slip away. It won't be fair to you or to your potential family to always have that on your mind.
Sometimes you just have to take a deep breath and leap off the cliff, the water is always going to be there.
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Hello Claire 😊

I am not surprised you are feeling a bit confused. The decisions you are trying to make are overwhelming.

I would let your fantasies run wild and imagine that there are not barriers to the life you want and then imagine living that life. Most of getting what you want is passionately wanting and believing it can happen. After you imagine what you want you can then take steps to getting it. It may not happen exactly when you want or exactly the way you want but I do think it will happen. The things you are describing in your opening post are not so unrealistic and unattainable. I was in a similiar situation to yours in my late 20s. I had a decent enough job, I had done some travelling and I did not want to stay put holding down this job and paying the mortgage, and people kept talking about kids and the future. I started by doing some of what I wanted. I did lots of overtime at work to get more time off for travelling and I spent all my time off travelling. Even though I thought all guys of the age I was interested in were divorced and had kids and tonnes of problems that I did not want to be involved in, I decided to be open minded and date lots of them to get to know them and find out if there was one I could like more than the others. And there were other small changes I put on my life that made a huge difference. In just a few years my life had completely changed and I found myself living in a foreign country with a boyfriend and daugher. I wasnt getting to do much travelling which disappointed me a bit but then a few years after that I started travelling quite frequently again, mostly by myself, sometimes with my boyfriend or daughter and sometimes with both. And I am still constantly working on adding more of what I want to my life in whatever ways I can.

For a start, yes you can get a tennant for your house. I have one in mine who pays the mortgage while I live in another country. Managing this from a foreign country is not easy but as you said you dont want to settle for easy.

When you say you are afraid that you are running away, what is it you are afraid you are running from? Maybe what you really want to do is make your life more balanced in your own country rather than moving to Peru? Which aspects of the expat life appeal to you?

Mel Reply to this

Private message I received from Gozza

Hi Mel

Sorry I can't work out how to reply to a forum message, so I've gone private. Thanks for the wonderful advice and all of it makes sense. Think what I saying is that if I rent my house, quit job and go teach, am a being a fantasist running away from all the everyday responsibillities everyone has? I got nothing to actually run away from, except the monotony of my job, my friends all have partners, I can find a man thats interesting and I get really bored. Before I went to Peru I actually loved having security of my home and what I thought was my dream job but don't move on, it becomes a rut situation and the 1's that are happy have famillies and want an easy life. I'm not saying Peru is my ideal place but the thrill of the adventure, plus I was on a course months back and I was asked what is your dream in life? and I said to see as much of this world as poss. Though some1 on here has just said to get a job abroad is just like moving your life somewhere else, it's all the same?? I don't know, think I'll have a few glasses of vino tonight and clear my head. Gracias Signorita, mucho gusto.

Ciao

C x

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Hi Mel, no I don't mind,

Sorry I can't work out how to reply to a forum message, so I've gone private. Thanks for the wonderful advice and all of it makes sense. Think what I was trying to say is that if I rent my house, quit job and go teach, am a being a fantasist running away from all the everyday responsibillities everyone has? I got nothing to actually run away from, except the monotony of my job, my friends all have partners, I can find a man thats interesting and I get really bored. Before I went to Peru I actually loved having the security of my home and what I thought was my dream job but there is little chance to progress, it becomes a rut situation and the 1's that are happy have famillies and want an easy life. I'm not saying Peru is my ideal place but the thrill of the adventure, plus I was on a course months back and I was asked what is your dream in life? and I said to see as much of this world as poss. Though some1 on here has just said to get a job abroad is just like moving your life somewhere else and kids are better than any exotic place, is it all the same?? I don't know, think I'll have a few glasses of vino tonight and clear my head. Muchos gracias Signorita.

Ciao

C x Reply to this

Hello Claire. This is not meant as advise but only as a sharing of my own experience. I always wanted to travel more than anything, but I had a good job and I met my husband and did a bit of traveling with him before having my daughter at age 32. Yet there was always something calling me. Something that said that I would never be happy with a traditional job and my own huge house and large mortgage. Having my child WAS the most wonderful thing I've ever done and your kids DO become your life and give you purpose and priorities. But if you're a good parent, you give them strong roots and then you give them WINGS and they fly off as they should. As a woman who has had children, I can honestly tell you that the experience of letting your child "FLY AWAY" is very difficult!
So, I am now one of those people that waited to do this until my child was grown. I envy those that did it while they were younger. Youth is loaded with possibilities, including the possibility of finding a special person to have your children with. I have had some great travel experiences (a lot of them with my daughter), but I advise her now to go off and see the world. Have fun! Don't worry so much about the "responsibilities" that society urges you to take on. Travel will give you experiences that will fill your life with joy, interesting friends, and wonderful memories! Seeing the world and meeting people from other cultures will also give you a better appreciation of your own life. All this makes you better prepared to guide another life into this world (to be a better parent). Whatever you decide, have fun and good luck. At 31, you are just beginning!

A. zudro Reply to this

Hi Claire,

Ill offer you my opinion for what its worth. I think that one of the biggest problems with travelling, is that many of us including me feel exactly the way you described in your original post when they return home or even settle somewhere for a decent amount of time. That being bored, somewhat frustrated and unable to settle. I think travelling or the experience you get from it is like a drug and once you have done it you can never go back to the way you were. Meaning that a lot of the time you struggle with the life you once had, the values you once held etc. I think if you go to Peru for a decent amount of time, you'll eventually find that you feel the same way there and its a problem you will likely face for the rest of your life when you settle somewhere, that being bored and somewhat frustrated, because you know whats out there and your value system has been influenced by more than one culture/set of ideas. So you wll have to learn to live with that problem whereever u go. Now after me transplanting the problems i have faced and am facing from travelling onto your problem which may be completely unrelated, what advice would I give you, well I would say go to Peru, but then I'm on the drug 😊 Reply to this

Here is a related thread.

Oh Happy Days
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Hey...how did Jo get an actual smiley face instead of just 😊 ? Reply to this