Born Nomadic

I guess you could say I was born nomadic.

In the first eighteen years of my life, I lived in twenty-two different houses between two countries (USA and Germany). This was due to a combination of a broken family, poverty, and eventually becoming a military family. By the time I could drive, I had been all over the USA with road trips or relocations.

I’ll never forget the summer I was fifteen and my mom drove my brothers and I across the country in our 1987 Isuzu Trooper that had no air conditioning, staying in the cheapest hotels she could find (some still give me nightmares today), and eating peanut-butter sandwiches along the way.

By the time I became an adult, I had been all over Europe, as it was not uncommon as a military family to explore the nations around you. When I reflect today as an adult on that era of my life, I’m actually thankful that it instilled a love and longing for being unsettled. That’s really the foundation of my entire being today.

There is a lesser-known and lesser-used word in our language called multipotentialite. At one time it was used by psychologist to describe somewhat of a personality disorder, but today the word is mostly useless. I heard this word as a young adult as I was studying counseling at my university, and it struck me as something I identified with. Essentially, the word is attributed to someone who has many creative pursuits.

It’s someone who is creatively unsettled. I feel creatively unsettled every single day. Some days I’m a writer. Some days I’m a designer. Some days I’m an event planner. But I’m always a creative. While my photography certainly has more traction these days, for most of my life I’ve been pursuing music, though not with much success. That’s the thing about multipotentialites, we’re not always amazing at anything! That said, for the last decade music has allowed me to share my creativity across nearly every state in the lower Forty-eight, and several other countries as well.

And as someone with diverse creative endeavors, I’ve leveraged everything in my abilities to travel. Let me share an example.

This past spring, I went to Israel with a group and was able to travel to Israel and see some incredible places. Since I had to fly to Israel and needed to connect somewhere in Europe, I flew through Ireland and extended my layover by three days. Why Ireland? Because there are some beautiful locations in Ireland that are quickly and easily accessible. Since I was going to be in Ireland, I contacted a few venues and ended up booking a music gig. 

In my three days in Ireland, I walked the streets of Galway, stood on the Cliffs of Moher, and played a show in Dublin. All of that happened before I even arrived in Israel with the group.

Your talents + your passions + your burdens = your calling. For me, travel and storytelling are how I’m living out my calling.

I believe I have some talents in the creative field, or at least I hope so! If not I’m an excellent creative conman, and that would be a talent in-and-of-itself, so win/win.

I’m passionate about being nomadic and traveling. It feels like home to feel unsettled. I love seeing new places for the first time, and moving around a lot to see everything I possibly can. I realize that the goal of life is adventure. It’s nature. It’s experiences and memories. It’s passing onto future generations a pioneer spirit. It’s being a trailblazer. It’s taking risks. It’s living simplistic and as minimal as you can. It’s caring for this Earth and all its inhabitants. It’s loving and respecting your neighbors, and even your enemies. It’s putting your “yes” on table. It’s going.

I know it sounds cliché, but you get one life to live. One chance to see and experience something. I don’t want to look back on my one life and have “stuff.” I want to look back on my life and have lived experiences. I want to hand my photo library to my children, and have them go stand on the cliff their father stood on. I want their children to do the same. All of my stuff will be gone one day. It will be donated, sold, destroyed, or whatever. Who still has their first smartphone? But my experiences will never be taken away.

At 18, I had a brain aneurysm and spent over a month in recovery in a German hospital. Ruptured brain aneurysms are fatal in about 40% of people. Of those who survive, about 66% suffer some permanent neurological deficit. Approximately 15% of people with a ruptured aneurysm die before even reaching the hospital. Obviously, I beat those odds. Every one of them. I survived, and had no permanent damage. It’s been another eighteen years since that happened, and I can tell you that I do not and will not take this life for granted. 

I’m absolutely going to live my life to the fullest. And I’m going to capture it and share that story with anyone who will listen or look.