Ciao from Rome! Here’s what YOU can LEARN from me spending my life savings traveling the world after leaving a stable Midwest graphic design job…THEN falling in love in Rome like a cheesy RomCom!

What did I learn leaving stability? Lots of things! (see graphic above) but the most important ones:

• Time in your life should be prioritized more than money (and the rest will follow)
• Risk when you are following your heart (and staying practical) is rewarding.

Do you remember the scene from Harold and Maude, where Maude goes “I feel much of the world’s sorrows comes from people who are this (referring to a unique daisy) yet allow themselves to be treated as that (pointing to a field of daisies)”? My dream is for everyone to reach their individual full potential, because this is how we can truly give back to the world. I'm an advocate for self-confidence, maybe because I grew up without it and am overcompensating.

But enough vague idealism, this is who I am. I grew up the weird quiet one, passive but creative since I was genuinely happy alone making things. People gave me social anxiety (I remember throwing up at my 8th birthday party from being nervous). I didn’t really have friends, but didn’t really need them.

In middle school my vulnerable and lonely self was convinced to go to a Pentecostal church because of free pizza. This slowly transpired into years of an emotional rollercoaster surrendering my SINFUL soul to Jesus with hands raised up and tears streaming down, for worship songs made 'hip' with distortion pedals and fog machines. I felt drunk off happiness and would sob from the overwhelming (fabricated) love I felt. I remember one night Youth Group was driven out to a huge bonfire, the size of a small house. A man made us stare at it and picture ourselves and loved ones in it forever if we didn't surrender to the Bible's teachings and tell everyone about it.

But the Truth is- Fear is not Love.

I stopped identifying as Christian in college realizing no one else in my bible study cared for scientific explanations of the verses I was digging into. The first 3 years of college I cried every day at some point because I had so much pent up depression. I never considered taking drugs because I felt there must be a reason I am sad, and believed in being patient and listening to myself.

I grew up believing the empty USA assumption that lack of a 'career' meant I was an utter failure (ugh) so I was in University for Graphic Design since it was the best way I could utilize my creativity to make a living. Being in the punk/ DIY scene with a love for Jello Biafra and anti-capitalist values, it took a LONG time to get a job, because truthfully I didn't fit the bill. I didn't understand people since I essentially was hopping from novelty to novelty. Turns out, that's essential to being a good designer so my admittedly myopic view of the world ended up being a huge handicap in progressing to a professional level. Eventually though, after a few not-quite design jobs in high end advertising firms where we were expected to essentially worship the copywriters that went to ad school (which felt morally disgusting), I got one that fit! At a broadcast company in the Midwest, working with small and medium businesses so it wasn't part of the corporate ad world. The BEST project I got to do was lead all design for the 2016 Cat Video Festival in the Twin Cities. It was seriously a dream come true.

TW: assault // One day in January 2016 I was on my daily afternoon walk to clear the mind, it was kind of the only thing that kept me sane sitting in a cubicle, even though it was the dead of winter. I was walking on an ironically placed residential cul-de-sac within a forgotten industrial part of town. A man was walking towards me on the sidewalk. We locked eyes for a second and I hear him say in a low tone, “How are you?” My thought is to at least answer out of fear of backlash for not (ladies you know what I’m talking about) so I responded in a matching tone, “good,” and kept walking. Except, I wasn’t still walking. He had his hand on my shoulder, grabbed tight. I locked eyes with him again and promptly yelled, “What the FUCK are you doing?” I proceeded to hit him in the face as much as I could. The body gets into flight or fight mode, and apparently my body was ready to fight this fucker that thought it was OK to touch me. It was me grabbing his eyes with my right hand unfortunately covered by a thick mitten (seriously my nails are talons) as we wrestled each other for a while since I naively believed I could hurt him so bad he would run away, and I wanted to punish him for his actions. Except, that didn’t happen. He ended up pinning me stomach down onto a snow bank, hands on the back of my wrists, his body lay on top of me. I squirmed and tried to break free but despite how much I wanted to I simply couldn’t. For what felt like eternity, I experienced my worst fear- complete lack of control and surrender. It felt like my body shut down and I had no options. I had no bag he could be trying to steal, the only value was my body. "This was it," I thought, "He's going to do whatever he wants with me." However there was literally one last thing I could try: blood curdling screaming. I made a sound I didn’t know could come out of my mouth; I wanted it to sound as terrifying as I felt. It was LOUD. And, it worked. He loosened his grasp, got up and ran away.

And the most fucked up part of this? I felt so LUCKY for what happened. He ran away. There are so many (mostly) women that have experienced similar terrors where the man didn’t run away. It made me feel this overwhelming sense of empathy and sadness for how women are treated in this world.

So, a few months later I started the Badass Design Bitches Collective (BDxBC), a group of designers that deal with street harassment. We raised enough money to print 2000 stickers with anti-street harassment messages in the voice and expression from these mostly women. We partnered with 20 local businesses in the Twin Cities and offered these stickers free to the public under the agreement they are put up somewhere public.

After 2 years at the broadcast job I realized my workload wasn’t going to change much, and despite the fun unique projects once and a while and opportunities that come with working in media, the thought of making any more animated banner ads for the local dentist office that insisted on using Comic Sans did NOT sit well with me. And as winter was coming around the corner again, I had to face I was getting increasingly anxious towards the reunion of what happened to me walking outside this time last year. That’s it, I needed a change, and something BIG.

So I planned a trip. Originally 2 months, and just South America. But, my employer agreed to let me work part time as I was traveling! I could now go further, and past my preconceived assumptions. I could travel....AROUND the world. Starting in one direction and I’d keep going until reaching Minneapolis again. I will write more about this experience in another post, but for now see the map above for the path of the 23 countries I visited (in SA, Oceana, Asia, Middle East, Africa, Europe) in 5 months.

My family didn’t support me (at first), I needed homes for my cats, had to move out of my apartment and sell/donate/find homes for all my furniture, car, everything. I had a savings accumulated from my design job, many art shows, and freelance projects, but not THAT much. It definitely wasn't the easy path. Still, I knew the value of following my heart and was SO ready to take a risk for once in my life. Money and opportunities fluctuate and I believed I'd figure something out when needed. People kept telling me I would only regret not doing it, and adults kept telling me NOW IS THE TIME.

This one trip completely changed my life in many ways- but the most pinnacle way is how it allowed me to trust in myself. To trust in my abilities, to trust I will embarrass myself inevitably, to trust I can overcome obstacles using creative problem solving. Before my trip I was so scared of having nothing when I returned home, but the opposite happened. Instead of feeling I only had opportunity in one place in the world, I now realized literally anything is possible if you work hard. I met my partner in Rome (he's Azerbaijani not Italian like many assume!) and we wanted it to work. I now live here and am a remote graphic designer doing freelance and managing my custom art map company, Hip My Trip. I'm still working on making back all the money I had before the trip, but I do not regret the trip ever. It gave me confidence to realize the importance of time over money, and with no risk there is no reward.

And the truth is, there is nothing special about me. We ALL have the ability to make our DREAMS a REALITY- if it is truly important to you, and you are being practical (please don't just spend all your money with no plan!) then you just have to make it happen. Maybe now is premature to implement the plan; maybe it will take a year of working an extra job to save money; maybe you have to learn skills you don't have now in business, entrepreneurship and/or coding. But if you are reading this now, you are connected to all the information and education in the world.

Don't for a second believe that you are just one in a field of monotonous daisies- if you look at your individual self you will see beauty, a unique perspective, and importance you cannot ignore.

Thanks for reading my story, looking forward to connecting with new people and sharing thoughts about life on this platform!