A Year Off

by Alexandra Brown

  Finding a New Perspective on Your Old Life

  This perspective is valuable. We found ourselves repeating this line often as we made the adjustment to being back home. We both felt a lot of pressure to slip right back into “normal life” and have the trip fade away. The pressures of home remained: career advancement, buying a home, buying a nicer home, having kids . . . the list went on. All these things were important to us, but we didn’t want them to become all-encompassing. The trip pulled into perspective our values and all the elements of life that made the day-to-day feel rich. We had never been so in touch with the things that gave us joy, and we wanted to be conscious of how we approached reentry so that we didn’t abandon what we had gained during our time away. When we would feel overwhelmed by making life work back home, and during the times when it all felt a bit impossible, we would remind each other that directing our energy into making a life that aligned with our values would be well worth it. We began to be able to see the tension and frustration we sometimes felt as helpful guides aiding us forward as we tried to be thoughtful with our choices.

  Travel had a different effect on everyone we met, but a few things proved to be universal. After traveling for an extended period of time, you’ll have gained a global perspective on issues, a deeper respect and love for our planet, the knowledge that most people in the world are good people, and an appreciation for a few new favorite foods. It’s also highly unlikely that the trip will not affect your life back home in a significant way, even if your life looks a lot like it did before you left.

  As with all the topics in this book, we hope to help you envision what it may be like for you to experience your reentry through our own story, to see your life from the perspective of the you that left, gained a mountain of experiences, and came back changed. In this chapter, we’ll share our experiences of finding and building new paths and new lives at home by holding on to what we could from our year of travel.

  How Over What

  San Francisco, CA

  DAVID

  37.7749° N, 122.4194° W

  “Could you have done this before?” a coworker asked. I began replying before my brain caught up, and I found myself rambling about an unknown, with no clear idea on how to address her question. I was not particularly impressed with what I was doing, so her question seemed a bit odd to me. I had a half-thought: Do what? Consult? Of course; anyone in this field can. But the other half was out of reach. I felt blindsided by an unexpected blend of emotions, like when I randomly want to have a full-on cry at a romantic comedy.

  Scrambling to slow down my circling, I quickly chose a side. “No, I guess not,” I said. In an attempt to understand why I was so taken by the question, I elaborated. “I guess I always envied consultants in my past because they made more, worked less, and had greater flexibility. I most likely would not have done it before, though, because it sort of puts your career on hold. I was terrified to do that then.” While speaking, I wondered if she could tell how oddly large an impact her question had had on me.

  As we stayed on the topic longer, I felt compelled to reveal a bit more about why I wasn’t too impressed with myself for consulting. “I thought I would come back and do something totally different,” I said. “I wanted to build something I believed in, something I could pour my heart into. When I first started working in the corporate environment, it was such a miserable adjustment, and, honestly, I never expected to return to this office building. I think the me that left on the trip would see my current choice as a failure.”

  I didn’t know this coworker well, but I could sense her adventurous spirit, and something about her made me think she saw success differently than many of my other coworkers did. This assumption proved to be accurate as she told me of her unique upbringing abroad and her exciting future ambitions to be CEO of a cause-oriented retail company. Somewhere in our conversation she mentioned the guts it took for me to quit and continue to address life on my own terms as a consultant. She went further and expressed how she would be far too scared to do the same. I felt a bit taken aback by this reveal; I was not surprised that she would be nervous to pause her hard-earned career and her life with a kid and a husband to travel around the world, but the way she felt about my current decision was perplexing.

  All of a sudden, my mind was racing again with connections. I am literally back working for my old boss in the same office building, yet I am in no way back to where I was before. I left something constrictive for something liberating: a job that kept me from what I loved for a job that enables me to do what I love, from feeling owned to feeling free, from a rat race to having fun, and from always sensing that I need to conform to feeling valued. Stepping off my career path to travel has changed me.

  As I walked back to my desk, I realized that I didn’t follow my plan to start a business because I didn’t want to right now. It did not align with what I valued in this moment. I wanted time to do a variety of things, and this current role facilitated that. I also liked the daily challenge and felt lucky to have the opportunity to get paid for doing something that after years of work now came naturally. And I knew if that changed, I would figure out how to walk away and start something new.

  Same Same but Different

  San Francisco, CA

  ALEXANDRA

  37.7749° N, 122.4194° W

  I stared at the computer screen, my eyes registering but not reading the rows of emails neatly stacked in my inbox. I had an inbox again. And a work email address. And tasks that were somehow overdue even though it was my first day on the job. Focus, I thought. You know how to do this. Just focus. But my mind bucked the instruction and continued to reel. I glanced up from my laptop at the people around me. These were my new coworkers. They were all seated around one gigantic table as part of the “collaborative and open work plan” the agency had adopted, like so many other companies had over the last few years. Some people had on headphones to block out noise while others chatted with their neighbors. Two guys were tossing a miniature basketball back and forth across the table as they talked about a project. What have I done? I thought. I had no idea how I was going to connect to these other people, let alone to the work I had been hired to do, at least not in the state of mind I was in right now.

  Since I had gone back to the line of brand-strategy work I had done before, I thought the transition from traveling life to working life would be a bit smoother, but something about everything being so familiar yet seeming so off left me feeling isolated and depleted. I couldn’t seem to shrug away the voice in my head that kept whispering about how I had made a mistake. I wondered if the people around me could tell I was having a small existential crisis. I thought about texting David an SOS message but stopped myself. I got up from my seat and went to the kitchen to get a cup of coffee, hoping to discover my rallying spirit among the creamers, sugar packets, and stirrers. Going back to my seat, I took a deep breath and returned my attention to my inbox. Just take it one email at a time, I thought.

  I got through that first day back at work, and as time went on, I began to adjust. I realized the year away hadn’t made me any less competent at my job. Rather, I was surprised to find it had improved the way I worked. I was more efficient, more decisive, and the variety of experiences I’d collected over the last year had given me a fresh perspective when it came to my day-to-day responsibilities. I began to embrace setting boundaries in the workplace—something I had struggled with in the past. I got to work each day just before nine and rarely stayed later than five thirty. I didn’t check my email at night or on the weekends. The job was going well, and while I still wasn’t completely clear on whether or not it was the right place for me long-term, I felt confident in my decision to give myself six months rather than impulsively quitting right away like I had wanted to do on the first day.

  I ultimately didn’t stay at that agency much longer than the six-month deadline I had set, but that first job back gave me the confidence to start making professional decisions for
myself rather than for all the “should” expectations I had previously set. After realizing I could still do the work but simply didn’t want to anymore, I ended up bidding farewell to the world of advertising agencies and making the jump to the client side, which felt like a step in the right direction. Along the way, I began having conversations with a publishing house in the area. I had dreamed of working in books since I was a small child, so when I was given an offer in their marketing department a year later, I couldn’t believe the childhood aspiration I had held on to for so long might become a reality. As much as I wanted the job, the decision wasn’t easy. Leaving corporate marketing for publishing involved some pretty significant risks. I would be taking a title demotion and massive pay cut. On an emotional side, I again faced external pressures pushing me to not step off the path I was on, as well as my internal guilt of feeling like less of a “contributor” and more reliant on David. I also had some fears about jumping into a whole new industry I knew very little about, but all these concerns couldn’t stand up to the pull I felt to follow my heart. With David’s enthusiastic support, I accepted the offer and made a major career transition.

  Most people in my life were encouraging of my decision, but a few were very vocal in their disapproval of me. Turns out that doing what you want is not always appreciated by others. Important figures in my life seemed incredibly disappointed about the fact that I would be making less money and working with less upside potential. This stung. As excited as I was about my new job, I couldn’t help but feel the weight of this disapproval. The first few weeks at the publishing house were good but also a struggle, and even though I tried not to let it happen, I got sucked into a spiral of stress and doubt.

  A good friend finally said the words that shook me from my reverie: “Release people to feel what they are going to feel and do not hold on to your instincts to please and not disappoint. You are on your path, and they are on theirs.” With a shock, I realized the feelings I had been experiencing about deciding to take this new job were similar to those I had felt when David and I decided to leave on our trip. The connection was so simple and obvious, but I had missed it during all those weeks of emotional churning. What’s more, David had been the one in search of something different when it came to work, not me. I had never really doubted my profession, even when we were on the road, but the trip had given me a new perspective and made it harder for me to ignore myself. I felt a newfound appreciation for the trip and its lingering effects, how the decision to go in the first place was now the spark to fuel so many other decisions to live life on my terms. It’s hard to say whether I would have made the same choices had I not gone on the trip, but something in the back of my mind says I probably wouldn’t have. Regardless, every day I go to work is now a reminder of how the trip has lived on, even if I’m no longer on the road.

  EMBRACE WHAT’S POSSIBLE

  Looking back at our year of travel, it was clearly the best year of our lives so far. It was not the easiest year by far, nor the smoothest, but in many ways we made the biggest bets we had ever made by following our hearts. Even if we didn’t really understand what that meant at the time we left, we learned what that meant every day on the road. We began to realize that the impossible or improbable are far less so if we put ourselves in the path of receiving them. Even more than the experiences and memories we amassed, we now see this new perspective as the most valuable part of our travels. Our year off proved to be the reset button we had been seeking for how we wanted to live. While we’re no longer on the road, we’re still holding tight to what made that year so magical and hope to always do so.

  A lot of people have asked us what changed the most after we took our trip, and while there are many ways to answer that question, one change is the most clear of all: so many more things feel possible now.

  Epilogue

  When we got back from our trip, we were curious to see what our relationship would be like at home and what our dynamic together would be without the constant changes and excitement of travel. In some ways we were both a little nervous, as we had never had a “normal life” together. Luckily, Bill Murray was right; life on the road proved to be really good prep for life at home. After six months we got engaged, and we planned a wedding, celebrating our commitment to one another under the Golden Gate Bridge almost one year to the day after setting foot back in San Francisco.

  When it came to going back to work, we were shocked by how well our travels were perceived by future employers. No one batted an eye at the way we explained our sabbatical, and while we had initially feared the yearlong gap would translate to a dark spot on our résumés, it proved to be surprisingly bright, often sparking really interesting conversations and connections. The most common response we got was “I would love to do that.” At the end of the day, people just got it.

  Two and a half years have passed since we returned from our big trip. While not on the same scale, our travels have continued in that time. We scratch the itch by going away for two-week stretches, picking a new country we’ve never been to or focusing on a few local spots to visit. We still use our same backpacks and even took them on our honeymoon. We both get a kick out of how quickly we fall back into our patterns from life on the road, efficiently packing everything into the small spaces available to us while still managing to squeeze in a few indulgences here or there . . . bottles of wine, cool ceramics from little markets, leather shoes, and small things to remind us of the expansiveness of the world while we live our daily lives back home.

  We still dream of traveling the way we did on our trip, of taking another long adventure to all the places we did not have time to explore the first time around, but new adventures await us here at home. The biggest may be that we are expecting our first child—a fact we learned of a month after committing to write this book. We have no idea what new changes this addition will bring, but we are already considering what to do with our maternity and paternity leaves. Maybe back to France, or perhaps somewhere warm. . . .

  Travel and traveling together have left such a positive impact in our lives that we often find ourselves encouraging people who show interest in taking the leap. This is a big reason we wanted to write the book. Travel awakened a part of ourselves that helps us remain engaged in our lives. We still fall into all the challenges home life can bring and the temptation to put our heads down and plow through, but after the trip, it’s harder to ignore what we care about in lieu of what’s expected. The trip also really reinforced in us the belief that there is no sustainable option to be anything or anybody other than yourself. In this way, it has yet to end; rather, taking a year off was just the beginning.

  Acknowledgments

  This book has been a labor of love from the start. We feel so lucky to have had this opportunity and are endlessly grateful to those who helped us along the way.

  First and foremost, thank you to our team at Chronicle Books: Deanne Katz, Christine Carswell, Jennifer Tolo Pierce, Diane Levinson, Sarah Lin Go, Christina Loff, Marie Oishi, Freesia Blizard, and Meghan Legg. Thank you so much for creating a book we can be so proud of.

  Thank you to Heather Kelly, Josh Haftel, John Zeratsky, Megan Sovern, Sonya Thomas, Daniel Schmidt, and Tenaya Middleton for helping us put a proposal together.

  Thank you to Vaunda and Drew Nelson for helping turn a proposal into a book and to Alan Clarke, John and Nedra Roberts, and Arvand Khosravi for helping us through the process.

  Thank you to RC Rivera and Josh Haftel for all things photography and Danielle Grey for design.

  Thank you to our parents, Andrei and Laurie, Justin and Christyl, and our siblings and siblings-in-law, Hilary, Jarrett and Hallie, Tricia and Kerry, and our grandparents, Howard, Gayle, Francine, and Bob for supporting our collective capabilities, championing our dreams, and cheering us on along the way.

  Thank you to Ali Shoule and Amber Cooper for giving the book its first test run.

  Thank you to Marian Milut for your enduring blessing to us.

&
nbsp; And to our daughter, Emma Cléo. You have opened our hearts in ways we couldn’t have imagined. We cannot wait to show you all the wonderful things to see in this great wide world.

  photography

  We took all the photos in this book with an inexpensive, light, and compact mirrorless camera and a fixed 50mm f/2.0 “pancake” lens. The final photos you see were edited with Adobe Lightroom on our Macbook Air while we were still abroad. If you’ve wondered where exactly these images were taken, this index will point you to the location of each photo in the book.

  Title spread (clockwise from top left): Singapore; Edinburgh, Scotland; Ankor Wat, Cambodia; London, England; Osaka, Japan; Berlin, Germany

  Page 5: Phnom Penh, Cambodia

  Page 6: Mcleod Ganj, Dharamsala, India

  Pages 12–13: Loire Valley, France

  Page 15: Wyoming, U.S.

  Page 21: Phnom Penh, Cambodia (top); Osaka, Japan (bottom)

  Pages 22–23 (clockwise from top left): Mekong River, Laos; Mysore, India; Kyoto, Japan; Luang Prabang, Laos

  Page 26: South Dakota, U.S.

  Page 28: Château de Chenonceau, Loire Valley, France

  Page 30: Luang Prabang, Laos

  Page 32: Osaka, Japan

  Pages 38-39: Badlands National Park, South Dakota, U.S.

  Page 40: Badlands National Park, South Dakota, U.S.

  Page 43: Edinburgh, Scotland

  Page 49: Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona, U.S.; Munnar, India

  Page 64: Luang Prabang, Laos

  Page 67: Phnom Penh, Cambodia

  Pages 68–69 (clockwise from top left): Chiang Mai, Thailand; New Delhi, India; Siem Reap, Cambodia; Bangalore, India; Rome, Italy

  Page 74: Kyoto, Japan