Episode 1: How I Got Here

Setting the scene:  Going from moving to Dubai, building and living my best life, to.... worn out, tired, frustrated and needing to figure out a way out of this new low point in life.  

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Transcript

This is a story of starting over in your thirties, told in real-time, and how I am trying to navigate my way through a confusing juncture in life.  I have suddenly realized the life I am living is not the life I want.  

In this podcast, I will be documenting my journey of what it is like to make a complete 180 in life, at the age of 35.  In each episode, I will be sharing every step of my journey, as it’s unfolding in real-time; the good, the bad, the ugly. From starting a side hustle, to completely reconsidering and questioning every goal I made for myself in my twenties, I will be taking you on this journey with me to figure out my life all over again.   

The story starts back in March 2016, as a confident and established 29 year old, I took a risk and was on a plane to move half way around the world, from Austin, Texas all the way to Dubai.  It was a very drastic and sudden decision, but the opportunity presented itself.  As the sagittarius that I am, of course I couldn’t let this chance of living abroad pass me by.  

So with this new opportunity, the goal was to live my best life.  I landed in Dubai with a boyfriend, BUT without a job.  So the pressure was on to make it work out here. 

Pretty quickly, I started teaching spin classes to get by, which was something I had been doing in Austin for about 4 years and loved it. Here is a clip of me during one of my classes in Dubai.  Since I was living off my savings I spent all my time scouring Linkedin, applying for jobs, sending resumes, scheduling interviews, and just hustling my way into this new life I was trying to create. 

In Austin, I was working for a tech company that had a fun, start-up vibe and I really wanted to find the same type of set up in Dubai.  

A full five months later, after countless applications and interviews, I was finally able to land a job with another young American tech company. It was the start up vibe I was looking for, and even better, required several work trips to Europe per year, which again, is so my thing. I felt so lucky that I was in a new, exciting city and was able to find exactly what I wanted.  

From then on, my boyfriend and I found an amazing apartment we loved next to the beach, in a very trending and touristy area of Dubai. When we moved in, It felt like we finally crossed the finish line of making it in another country. 

We made it!  We were living our best lives; working, partying, finding a good group of friends, traveling to different countries every few months, and exploring what Dubai had to offer.  We really started to make Dubai our home. 

Fast forward 4 years and suddenly it’s March 2020.  My world has suddenly turned upside down. 

Where did it all change for me?

Well, my boyfriend of 5 years and I had broken up back in 2019, so before COVID started sweeping the world, I was already living on my own again. Though I found myself in a new relationship right before our city was forced into really strict lockdowns, I was still feeling pretty independent. So, even though I wasn’t single anymore, more unexpected life changes were going to unfold. 

So this is where my story starts:   I was 33 years old, with a new boyfriend, a great salary, living very freely and independently, with no kids, no mortgage, and not even a dog to keep me at home.  My independent, adventurous, “I-do-as-I-please” self ran straight into a global pandemic at full speed.

Like most of us around the world, COVID changed so many parts of my life and even the way I viewed myself.

Within a few months, I was tired. I was mentally worn out, socially isolated and emotionally depressed and in hindsight I was on the brink of a few mental breakdowns.  Ironically, I wasn’t aware of any of this because my job consumed all my time and attention. So yeah, the only thing keeping me from falling apart was the job that was causing the stress to begin with.

Because I work in the tech industry, my job kept me busier than ever.  Turns out, when the world was being forced to stay home, tech and digital platforms were more important than ever.  And honestly, I know it might sound too obnoxious or privileged to say, but I struggled A LOT with being grateful that I was still working. 

I found myself getting jealous of those that got furloughed and had the time to invest in themselves.  If you had the time to do at-home workouts, learn how to bake bread, take online painting courses, or even start your own Tik Tok channel, trust me when I say, I was VERY jealous of you. 

Don’t get me wrong, I understand there were many struggles and stresses that came with not having a paycheck, but being forced to isolate at home, and work what felt like “around-the-clock” because there wasn't any excuse not to, also had some major downsides as the pandemic went from weeks to months.

(Recorded call with Mom)

As you can tell, I struggle to collect my thoughts as I reflect on how things were unfolding for me 2 years ago.  So this is not a deep-dive recollection of my COVID experience, it is my starting over moment.  The moment that has brought me here today, in front of this mic, recording this podcast.

(Recorded call with Mom)

Hearing it back, there is a lot of confusion and  regret in my voice on how I chose to manage my time. I think the reason I have a hard time articulating my experience is because I just ignored how I was REALLY  feeling back then.

(Recorded call with Mom)

This is my mom.  Living in a suburb right outside of Austin, Texas where I grew up. For the past 6 six and a half years, almost all of our conversations have been virtual. 

In one of our zoom calls this year, my mom and I reflected on how we each got through COVID. It was the first time we ever reflected back on it together.   

(Recorded call with Mom)

I quickly became burnt out with life, and I know I wasn’t alone.  I appreciate that it is a feeling a lot of us had to overcome during such uncertain times. 

Without realizing it, I was beginning to question my purpose and the pursuit of happiness. 

(Recorded call with Mom)

I know we are all tired of hearing about covid this or covid that, and honestly to me, it feels like a distant memory.  

So, I found myself in my worst place in years. At the height of the pandemic, I was really struggling mentally.  What was the point of answering emails all day, fighting work fires, getting push back from clients, being asked to do tasks that were not technically my responsibility, and figuring out how to navigate this new “working from home” way of life, day in and day out, month after month? 

It all started to feel so pointless and empty.  Even considering the pointlessness of it felt scary.  Does that mean I wasted my whole 20s pursuing this career that felt meaningless right now?  And what do I do now?  Where do I go from here?  Is it too late to change it?  And the biggest question of them all; What do I even want out of life?

For 2 years these questions kept nagging me in the back of my head. Guess what I did about it! Absolutely nothing.  When covid started fading away, I was still working the same job, which still kept me busy as always.  And every time I kept questioning myself, I simultaneously kept reminding myself how lucky I am to have a good salary, with good benefits, and I shouldn’t be complaining about anything.  That helped to brush it all under the rug, keep my head down and just keep working. 

So by the end of 2021, I had had enough.  At some point between one pointless zoom meeting after another, I realized I am letting life pass me by.  And for what?  For my salary and health benefits?  It  didn’t feel worth it anymore.  This nine to five gig lacks joy, purpose, passion. So, how do I get what I actually want out of life? 

This is the confusing juncture I find myself in.  

Coming up, scenes from the next episode. 

(Clip from Episode 2)

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