Blogging allows you to create something, anything that you want.
Some write about food, others fashion, some travel, and the rest whatever else is interesting or popular at the moment. They write amazing articles full of useful information, shareable lists, and breathtaking photos to match.
I’m grateful to these people.
I’m obsessed with reading and I prefer to get most of my information from blogs. I don’t really get down with mainstream media and rather enjoy the personal one-on-one experience. This way, I can see if I connect with their writing, and if so, then I might be more likely to find their piece credible.
And, what if I don’t connect with them? Well, it doesn’t really matter because likely I can weed through their posts and still find something useful. And, because those lists and pictures are just so pretty!
But, what about the bloggers that don’t write about food or fashion or just travel.
What if I don’t want to write about the states everyone just must visit or Top Ten Things To Do In Oregon? Actually, that sounds like a good one.
But, honestly, I’d rather someone else write it. Because, they would do a much better job.
I’d rather just write our stories as they happen and let them speak for themselves. If someone gets something out of them, some ideas or desires, then that’s awesome. But, if not, then we just have a really detailed memoir of our adventures and our lives.
So what do we talk about?
If we’re not going to be sharing what to do and where to go?
Well, we just want to share our journey and our thoughts, simple as that. These two things may sound simple, but actually they are everything.
Our journey and our thoughts are us. And, ultimately, so is this blog.
Maybe, that’s why it’s so important to us. For us, it’s more than just about getting people to see where we’ve been and what we’re doing.
I think that’s actually the part that has been the toughest. Because we want to be the people that don’t document everything but instead take in the moments as they come.
So, that balance in itself has been a struggle.
Also, the opening up of our lives is something that is taking some strength to get through as well.
Several months prior to starting our blog accounts, or even this website, I deleted my personal social media accounts. I just started realizing that I wasn’t living my life authentically, and social media was only adding to that.
It clouded my judgment between what I wanted to do and what I thought would make a good Instagram photo. I think maybe subconsciously we all do it or have done it at one point, one event, or one meal.
But for me, I wasn’t sure which was which any more. My social media account was a mixture of travel photos, selfies, food, drinking, more selfies, and just random “cool” events throughout the year.
As I scrolled through my super long feed, I didn’t even recognize that person. I became so obsessed with likes, comments, good picture, bad picture, and what everyone else was doing, that I left zero room to figure my own shit out.
When I realized and finally admitted that I, in fact, had much shit to figure out, that’s when I realized that I just needed to disconnect. And that is why shortly after, I disconnected even further by changing my number.
But, wait… I don’t want to paint the picture that I was completely miserable and walking around like Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh all the time. I definitely wasn’t.
Just a few short years ago, I was surrounded by dozens of friends, worked for a promising company, and just met the love of all my lifetimes. And yet, I was still a little lost.
Prior to Boris, I would have periods of necessary solitude.
One of the greatest things about law school, was the opportunity to live alone for four years. Literally alone. No roommates. Just me.
It was amazing.
I don’t think I was neither happy nor miserable at that point, I think I was just numb.
I buried so much so deep that I never really allowed myself to feel anything. Instead, I filled my time with events, organizations, and drinking.
Because, when I did allow it, it was too hard to climb out of.
So, I just maintained a façade of happiness that was so convincing, even I believed it.
That’s why living alone was great. I loved it because it was the only time that I felt I could truly be myself.
It’s not that I was ever fake or not myself around people. At least, not intentionally.
It’s just that I would only show sides of myself that I thought would make them happy. I would make the conversation flow in a way that left them feeling better about themselves. All while avoiding confronting my own issues.
That has always been my MO and something that I only realized relatively recently.
This is something that I’ve done my entire life, starting in childhood – when being myself became my greatest fear.
Would people even love me if they knew who I was? If they knew that I didn’t agree with them about this or that?
It could be as trivial as a favorite band or something more serious like politics and religion. But, if it was a disagreement, then it’s not something that I discussed with those I loved.
Although, that’s not to say that I was agreeable. Because I sure as hell loved a good debate. It’s half the reason I went into law school.
But, I always kept the debating to those that were at arm’s lengths. Those I didn’t really care about offending, and mainly those who were able to debate back.
Yet, with those close to me, I kept most of my thoughts at bay.
Then, I met Boris.
It was the first time that I felt completely comfortable to be myself. And it was instant.
I would feel out his reactions and it seemed that no matter what I said, even if I disagreed with him, he wouldn’t change. His face wouldn’t scrunch up and his voice wouldn’t alter.
He would just be there, calmly disagreeing with me.
That set the tone for our relationship.
With each occasion that he showed me it was okay to be myself, the more myself I became. And the more I started to realize who myself was.
I’m still not all there. There are moments I say or do things that don’t feel like myself.
Not negative or positive, but just don’t feel like me. My essence.
Maybe it’s a phrase I constantly heard my mom say while growing up, or a way I saw my dad answer a question. Maybe it’s a habit I picked up in high school or a mannerism that rubbed off from a person from my past.
But, slowly and each day I peel those layers off and throw them away.
And, that’s what this blog is.
It’s an accountability website for us. It’s a way for us to continue on the path that we know we’re meant to be on.
This isn’t something that is in any way easy for us.
If you would have told us even two years ago that this is what we would be doing, we would’ve laughed and called you crazy.
And, now, that’s the reaction we’re getting from everyone else around us.
Our close ones don’t understand us and even more so, just want us to stay “home”. Stay close.
But, we keep going.
Because we have no choice.
When we started this blog, the wildest and craziest thing we had done was get married suddenly and headed to live in the South.
Then, it was a road trip that opened our eyes in a way we never imagined.
After that it was four months car camping on the road.
Now, we’re stuffing our lives (again) into two backpacks with no plans, no limits, and no expectations.
It might be our dream, but it’s everyone else’s nightmare. And I can’t really blame them.
Our parents left their lives in Moldova to move to America when we were young and give us all a better life.
They started their way from the very bottom and scraped their way to where they are now. All to be able to do what it is that they’re doing and to be where they are.
How could we give up what it is that we had for so long? Something that our parents have wanted us to have for even longer?
I can understand why it’s shocking to them for us to leave a place that we all huddled towards and built a family around.
How could we be leaving the little ones in the family who grow so fast and even right before our very eyes? We love them and want to be an example. But how can we be an example if we don’t do what makes us come alive?
If we ended up settling next to our families, stayed at our jobs, and lived the regular 9-5 aka 6-7, and saw them every other weekend for a few hours, would they then be happy?
Maybe. Maybe not.
We can’t be sure, but what is for sure, is that we would be miserable. We would become zombies and shells of ourselves.
We accept that everyone lives their life how they do. People are doing what they feel they need to, and we understand that.
All we’re doing is what we feel that we need to.
This isn’t so much a choice as it is a calling. We’re following our intuitions, our hearts and our souls on a journey that we feel we belong on.
Isn’t that what we’re all doing?
Isn’t that what we all should be doing?
That’s all we’re trying to do. It’s as simple and complex as that.
And once again, that’s what this blog is.
This blog is us. It’s everything.
It’s our way of putting ourselves out there. Our true selves. Selves that no one other than us has seen before, not even our families. Not even our friends.
This blog is a way for us to be authentic, be our best selves, and continue living the life that we feel we need to.
And, ultimately, it’s a way for us to connect.
Life is about connection. And even though, we really are all connected, this world can make us feel so disconnected at times.
It’s the largest sadness of humanity to feel so detached from so many.
That’s why we really hope eventually someone will read our page, see our photos, or watch our videos, and something will click. There will be a connection. And that connection will then create a new wave of connection.
Then, hopefully, eventually, create a wave that we can feel no matter where on the globe we are. And, maybe, even connect again with those that we somehow got disconnected from.
After all, no one really distances themselves from people, or bodies. We distance or disconnect from energies. Just like we connect with energies.
And that’s what we’re trying to do.
But the only way we could possibly do that, is to be ourselves.
Completely, whole-heartedly, and even gut-wrenchingly ourselves.
That’s why we can’t do top ten lists (even though we’ve tried, kinda). We can’t do ads, we can’t do affiliates, we can’t even niche down.
We may not be perfect bloggers, and this blog definitely isn’t perfect. But, it doesn’t need to be.
Because, this is us.
We grow, we evolve, we take steps forward and we take steps back.
We have minor triumphs and major failures. And the further we go, the greater rate at which all of that will continue to happen.
But, it’ll still be us.
Then, universe willing, we can look back in 100 years at our lives and be grateful for that first step, that first idea, that first article.
Because even if I have days where I may doubt what I write now, by then, it will just be a page in the many books of our lives.