Hello everyone and welcome to my blog!! If you’re reading this now, you are about to follow me on a journey around the world… HOW EXCITING! For those of you reading this who might not know me so well, and I take it that there’s a few of you, let me introduce myself!
My name is Danielle, I’m 23 years old and I grew up on Long Island. I’ve worked at a Marketing firm in Melville for the past year (shout out to any possible DJAers reading this!!!) and I’ve recently made the decision to quit my job to travel.
When I first told my family and friends about my decision to reverse my life a bit and do something so crazy, the reactions were mostly… “You’re crazy but good luck and be safe” or “I could never travel alone”, and the best one, “I WISH I COULD DO THAT I’M SO JEALOUS”. That last one reaffirmed my decision to do this. I made the choice to not wake up one day and say, “Fuck…why didn’t I have the balls to do that when I was young and had no responsibilities?” I don’t want to be in that category, I won’t let myself. If you want something bad enough, you’ll make it happen- it’s that simple.
There are a few reasons why I’m taking this trip. The first and most obvious, I love to travel!!!! Traveling is so much fun; I just can’t imagine anyone not loving it. The second reason is because my ENTIRE life I have always not done something because I had no one to do it with. I’m in the mood to go for a hike today….wait no one wants to come with me…I guess I won’t go. I want to take a dance class…never mind my friends don’t want to do it anymore. It got to the point where I was sick of not doing what I wanted to do, because I had no one to do it with. It kind of just hit me… “Whose life are you living? If you were living your own life, you’d do what you wanted to do no matter what.” No more waiting around, not this girl. I am SICK of waiting for things to be convenient for other people.
Doing things by yourself these days is just unheard of. You always have to be connected to your phone, so that just in case someone sees you, they know you have friends. Like what kind of a concept is that? Duh- I have friends. Why do I need to be with them 247 to prove that? Why do I even care what people think of me so much? This is me getting over that fear; I’ll be traveling solo for a majority of this trip. How do I feel about this you ask? Let’s just say that if there was a pie chart of my emotions, it would read 85% terrified and 15% sure that I’ll be dead within 3 days (I know, I’m really optimistic).
I’m legitimately forcing myself to do this. An hour before I went in to tell my boss I was quitting, I called my brother and asked him if I was making a mistake. He said I was crazy and that my flight was booked and the decision was made.
So here I am, a week before I leave freaking the FUCK out; but I cannot wait for the adventure that lies ahead of me, and I also cannot wait to share it with you!
