Corporate America Runaway

I have moved! If you are a reader of my blog or enjoy the articles about travel to specific countries, please come check out my new website at www.ottsworld.com. I will no longer be updating this Bootsnall blog; instead I have moved all of these articles to the new site and am currently adding new posts weekly on my new travel adventures.

At the new site you can also sign up for RSS feeds and email notifications through feedburner. If you used to be signed up for feeds on this Bootsnall Site, then you will have to sign up again on my new site. In addition, I hope you will find the new site easier to use when trying to locate articles about specific topics and countries. There are many other great new features such as surveys, featured articles, photo streams, and tags - so check it out!

In addition to my website move, I’m also moving physically! For those of you who haven’t kept up to date on my whereabouts and plans - here’s the scoop:
I’m leaving to fly to Nepal tonight. I will be doing volunteer work in Nepal for 2 1/2 weeks teaching kids in a remote village. I will be living with a family in the village - I don’t really know any more than that. Some people would be freaked out by that, I on the other hand am a bit excited about the unknown adventures in my future…good and bad. I am volunteering through Hands for Help Nepal; a local Nepal organization. After I am finished with my Nepalese village adventure, I will be moving on to Vietnam’ my new home for a year. I have taken a job teaching English to adults at ILA Vietnam - an English Language School in Ho Chi Minh City (otherwise known as Saigon). I will be living in HCMC for a year. I’m not really sure what to expect, I don’t have a place to live yet, but I know that the school is big and I should meet plenty of other people like myself…even though they are all probably 10 yrs younger than me!

I will be doing a ton of writing and photography now since I’m back on the road - so please check out the new site and sign up for email notifications!. I bought a new camera this summer, and will be uploading some of the photos from my last days in NYC so check out the new photography! I can’t tell you how much I appreciate hearing from people when I’m on the road. It really does make my day and remind me that I’m not all alone out there halfway across the globe!

Please continue to join me on my Corporate America Runaway adventures and move over to www.ottsworld.com

Photo: Shutting the door on my 5 years at 74th and Columbus…

There’s something surreal about seeing your bed wheeled down the streets of NYC on a dolly. Really – a sobering situation.

There I was, walking down the street with friends after dinner seeing my life possessions being carted down the street – God…this isn’t happening…is it?

My friends have been amazing – and have benefited quite a lot from my liquidation of my life. Many of them have taken/borrowed furniture, art, and electronics. This is all great as is means that it’s less stuff to put into storage…however in another weird way it is terribly painful. I realized just how painful it was when I saw my mattress being wheeled down the street past the Museum of Natural History…which may be quite fitting for my mattress!

Photo: Me working my ‘home office’…what’s left of it.
Slowly – every day more is taken away…I’m left with a beach chair - my only piece of furniture to sit on, paper plates, and plastic silverware as I’ve sold all the rest.

Sure, it’s great to have the money from selling things…but it goes so fast. It’s strange thinking that your bed is the same value as a dinner and a nice bottle of wine in NYC.

I’d like to sit here and say that I liquidated my life with ease and confidence, that I was the model of composure; but I can’t lie. There have been a few tears shed about the loss of my possessions. As it gets closer to nothingness, more tears seem to come, but that is more about me wanting this whole process to be over – I’m just tired of it. I’m tired of living like this slowly watching things disappear and crumble around me. The rub is that as bad as it feels – it feel equally good and freeing. Sometimes I think that tears are necessary though…it’s a mourning process that we have to let our bodies go through….and mine has been working overtime.

Photo: My dear friends doing some ‘Sherry Shopping’ - at least I know it goes to a good home!

Seeing my bed on the street…well, that was a whole new level. I was already a bit apprehensive about selling my bed, seeing it on the street made it even harder. Your bed is precious. Just think for a moment…think about your bed….and then think about never sleeping in it again. But not because you are replacing it with a new fluffier bed, instead it is because you are choosing to give up normalcy. From this point forward for the next few years you will be sleeping in multiple beds - some good, some bad. But never the same bed for long; and it’s never YOUR bed. That is the challenge of traveling.

It’s weird to be going through this again – leaving again. I have this ‘here we go again’ feeling as I pack up my suitcase full of rolled clothes – my dresser on wheels. It’s easier since I know what to expect, but harder also because this time it’s for real….there’s nothing but friends and a small storage space in Manhattan to come back to.

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