My Story

I have always been a traveler. Not just physically, but in my mind. As a little boy I loved to close my eyes and imagine places. Through books, cartoons and movies I could always travel and see new and exiting places and meet interesting people. It was as if the world just waited for me to seek it out.

My first long adventure was as an exchange student when I was seventeen. I had always dreamt of America. My expectations might have been a bit over-romantic, but it was a dream come through when I was to go and live in “The Wild West” in Wyoming. My host parents took me to so many places, to see so much and I am forever grateful for that. Maybe the nomad in me awoke there, in the Ford 350 pickup, crossing the prairie at the foot of the Bighorn mountains while listening to Bruce Springsteen on my Walkman?

In the years that followed I lived in Lausanne to study French, I took my masters in Canterbury in England, I spent 6 months in Rome and I worked for 2 years in Brussels. Then I returned home. A back-injury made me change my field of work and I became a teacher. I teach English, social science, sometimes French and now last math. At the same time I got involved in politics and for four years I was the major of my home “town”.

At the end of 2019 I took a 2 months long trip through Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Iran and India. The nomad in my awoke like a sleeping giant and I really wanted to go traveling again, and for even longer. However, 2020 was not kind to my dreams. First covid came over us in march, then just weeks later I had a heart attack. A couple of stents and 5 days in hospital later I was as good as new, or atleast so it seemed.

The thing is, I wasn’t. I don’t know if I would be alive in a month or not. Probably my chances of another is very small due to the fact that I had my first and I take my medications and everything, but that doesn’t really change the thoughts that are in my head. Somewhere in my mind there is always that thought that it is going to happen anew.

While it all happened, and afterwards, I surprised myself by not at all being afraid of death. Maybe challenging genetics had prepared me that the day would come, I don’t know. Of course it made everything easier right then and there, joking with the paramedics that gave me morphinein in the ambulance , but as days passed I felt that something was missing.

To fill the days was easy. Being a teacher, local politician and what not took care of that, but at the same time I noticed that I became more and more tired. It is a well known cliche from many a tear dripping story that “I don’t fear death, only life”. But I think that was me. Contents was easy, meaning was hard. I pulled away for everything that smelled of responsibility. How could I allow myself to bind myself to something or someone when I knew in my mind that it was just a question of days or weeks?

It is not a good, nor a meaningful life to live like that, but it took me 2 years to realize that I had to do something about it. The answer? I am not sure I have found it yet, and I am not really sure if I know where to look, but I have come to understand that I have no choice but to search. I know the answer is within, but at the same time I know that I must mirror the search in a journey in the physical world.  

That is why I have decided that the summer when I turn 50 I will leave everything behind. Sell all my earthly goods and pack everything I need into a 50L backpack and go.

That is a year from now and between now and then I will do everything I can to prepare myself for a life as a nomad.