If you were to ask me 20 years ago what I wanted to do in life my answer would be to be a waitress and write… then travel, fall in love, and have a baby. I am creative but don’t feel creative enough. I was taught to live paycheck to paycheck and credit cards all the way!!! (I’m still paying them off every month, ugh.) Got a hand on my first one around 16. I was told by my family that writing would get me nowhere and that I was weird because I liked Godzilla and Manga and things from across the world. So I started to travel across the world and go into debt over and over. Maybe having a travel blog will help change what I was taught. All I can do is try right!?
One year I went on 11 vacations surviving on my credit cards to make it through. I felt like things were finally going right and something always would go wrong. I worked at a company who took advantage and wouldn’t allow me to grow. I needed to make extra income and as someone who’d been there for 3 years at the time it doesn’t seem so hard to request a change of schedule so I can pick up the night somewhere. They told me no and said 3 years ago I gave them full availability so they would not help me. I ended up picking up an overnight job on the weekends and my regular job that was where I lived didn’t like it at all. I would ask my regular job to schedule me 3-11pm so I could go into my overnight at 12am-7am and then get off and have some time to sleep before work. Guess what they did?
They decided to schedule me 7am-3pm causing me to do a triple, or even a quadruple shift with no sleep all because they didn’t want me to have another job. Can you imagine how stressful that was? The company brought people in years after I started and guaranteed their hours were the same every week but me? They shifted every day. Sometimes less than 12 hours before I was due to start for that day. Yet the people who got a set schedule could work a 2nd job no problem whatsoever and be constantly praised.
What it did to me was make me start to rebel. Dislike my job and just dream of something better. The job made it that I had no work/life balance and my mental state was just diminishing. I finally got abroad for a week in Japan and I just continued trying to get out of debt. At one point everything fell apart. I was planning to work and live a year in Toronto and then Covid hit. I was furloughed and not let go like most of the fellow employees so I just felt grateful and stuck to my job. They again took advantage.
I finally got to the front desk (of a beach hotel) which I’d wanted to get to for years now and the head of department didn’t like me. My manager who fought for me would schedule me at the desk and then the department head would adjust the schedule and put me back where I was prior instead. I received death threats by guests and was even stalked by one as well. The department head called them little incidents and told me she would talk to me about what happened. She walked away that night and never stopped in. Told me to call her regarding the situation. With my mental state being the way that it was at that moment I quit that night. I was don’t putting a company first instead of myself.
I was moving out of housing into a condo 30 min away and while I was in the process the department head came to my room and made me follow her to HR. The head of HR told me “You are a big kid now, and you need to make a big kid decision. You need to act like and adult and quitting is not the right decision.” I told them that the values of the company no longer align with my morals and that safety should be a top priority and that they didn’t follow through on that.
They told me that I was an embarrassment to my family and that quitting their amazing 5-star resort would cause me to burning a bridge with them ensuring that I would never be able to work in hospitality again and that if i did, it would be for some Motel 6 or Holiday Inn by the highway. Now do you see why it was time to leave? The toxicity was maddening. When I told them I needed time off because my Grandma was in town they could care less and scheduled me to work on the days I requested off and the days I requested to work they gave me off.
I really am glad I got out of there. Then unfortunately within 1.5 years I went from there to bettering myself by working 3 jobs AND going to the gym to everything falling apart by a hurricane. 5 feet of water and loosing my things I became lost again. All I wanted to do was travel. Finally after waiting a year and a half for my condo to get rebuilt I made it out. I’ve ended up out in Colorado at a ski resort checking off my bucket list for living in the mountains. I still feel the urge to keep moving… That’s Wanderlust. I love moving around as long as its my own decision.
In October of 2024 I lost my place in a hurricane for the second time and moved right on back to Colorado. I’ve even learned to ski. My dog passed away a couple weeks ago now and I’m ready for my next adventure. Instead of staying where I am I’ve been reminding myself that I can’t have a travel blog if I don’t travel. I am very excited to finally get this blog going. The wanderlust is real. I’m planning summer in Idaho to go to a lot of places I’ve never been and a gigantic trip to Asia, but knowing me I’ll only make it to Japan.
So that’s how my wanderlust started… it’s still what I dream to do every day. I really enjoy going to new places and I crochet with inspiration from my adventures. I have a shop on Etsy and Shopify both called AMD crochet goods. Shopify is actually AMDcrochetgoods.com. Check it out! I sell scrunchies, market bags, baskets, plushies etc. I have a Youtube travel channel called www.youtube.com/@FallingForMyself and a crochet business channel that hasn’t really taken off yet. I’m trying to make it where I want to be and change my trajectory. Create happiness instead of waiting. I’m tired of waiting. Gotta keep trying new things hence the blog.