by Abbie

Have I really been on this planet for almost three decades? It’s hard to believe. I have decided not to look back, but instead to look forward.

Here’s how I’m starting my 29th year:

1. Homeless. I left my last rented domicile on January 19th, 2014, and I do not know when I will have a permanent address again. I buy a lot of plane tickets, bus tickets, train tickets, and there is a sleeping bag in the back of my car. My toaster and my bed and my books are in storage. I live out of bags. My passport lives in my bags. My toothbrush folds in half.
2. Self-employed. I have a job. I complete it from my laptop. I read, write, and edit. I publish and receive payment. I do all of this from coffee shops, hostels, other people’s homes. I pay taxes quarterly. My laptop is insured. I step away from it to watch the sun rise. The waves crash.
3. Loved. Thanks to my previous travels, I have friends around the world. I am going to visit them. I am going to sleep on their couches and wash their dishes and buy them extra laundry detergent as thanks for letting me invade their spaces. My parents receive my mail at their home. My oldest friends write me emails and “like” the photos I post on Facebook of Portugal, India, Chile. I send my grandmother these photos, too, and she tells me they are beautiful and that she is happy for me.
4. Optimistic. I trust people. This means I am scammed in India and taken for a ride (literally) in Morocco, but it also means I am invited into someone’s home in Spain for a meal and taken to see three gorgeous waterfalls in Argentina. I continue to believe most people are good. My mother sits in her kitchen, worried. I sit in the passenger seat, in the stern of the boat, on the back of a camel.
5. Grateful. I begin my 29th year aware that not everyone has the opportunity and the means to do what I am doing. I am grateful for the ability to take my time, to roam, to experience — to give my soul room to inhale and exhale and find something meaningful. I will express my gratitude for this by trying my hardest not to look for anything, but to simply accept the growth that will happen to me this year.

I do not believe anything particularly menacing will befall me upon my turning 30, and I do not have a list of things I wish to accomplish before that happens. I have only the wish I will always have: I hope I spend these months, these days, these moments doing things that make me laugh, meeting people who teach me things, finding meaning, and simplifying my life.

Hello, 29th year. Let’s do this.