What’s Updates Vol. 8

Mid-November has always been a bit of a check-in month for me, by virtue of the fact that I’m usually packing my bags and heading back to the States for an extended stay through the holidays. It’s been my usual routine since 2016 when I first left the U.S. and moved to Cusco, Peru. This year is no exception. Next Wednesday, I say a brief goodbye to Oaxaca until January.

In these Thanksgiving-induced partings, I’m always inspired to reflect on what’s transpired in the months since arrival in whatever country I’m calling home. This go-round, I arrived in June. I remember traveling from Mexico City to San Miguel de Allende, then taking a spontaneous trip over to Guanajuato from there with a new friend, and finally making my way in the direction of Oaxaca by way of Puebla. It was two weeks+ of travel that landed me in Oaxaca in early July only to discover I had $1000 dollars left to my name.

Someway, somehow I’ve made it all the way to mid-November. Granted I am down to my last penny, but I’m here. I’m here as long as I wanted to be, longer in fact. How in the world did I manage? I’ll tell you.

What I didn’t account for in July are all of the moments (read: miracles) that presented themselves at just the right time along the way. Like having my two-week hostel bill paid for by a good friend who wouldn’t take no for an answer or being invited to house-sit for a month and a half and therefore have no rent to pay for that amount of time or the one-off writing assignments that trickled in from out of nowhere and gave me a bit more money to work with or, most recently, the 1000-peso discount on my current apartment and nice refund from the other more expensive one I had been unexpectedly asked to leave.

I’m so grateful for all of the ways I’ve been supported these past few months. Because by being here, the non-monetary miracles have flooded in too, the most thrilling of which is the unexpected relationship I’m in with a man that feels like a soulmate. There have also been opportunities I could have never dreamed of that came about by doing my #OneStreetWanders, including my brief taste of the life of a successful travel blogger, and others that were brought about by the connections I’ve fostered here in Oaxaca, like getting to go on that intimate Dia de los Muertos tour in Atzompa.

I’m still as unsure about where the money comes from as I was in June, and clearly in a far more severe financial situation than I was then too. But I’m less afraid than I was then. I’m less worried. I know that what I need arrives right when I need it, no sooner and no later. I know that my very participation in the present moment makes all the difference in the way things line up. And I know that as long as I keep following my heart and pursuing what lights me up, I’ll always be okay.

Previously, like in June for example, this would all just be baseless positive thinking. But not today. Today, right here in mid-November, these are words based on experience. My experience. Taking leaps and walking the riskier path is actually not as unsafe as you’d think. But what I’ve learned is you have to really let go. You have to really surrender for it to be so.

As you know from last week’s update, this blog will be receiving a new name soon. I have picked a winner, but I’m not ready to reveal it quite yet. In the process, however, I’ve also decided to start shifting these updates to newsletter-only. If you’re curious about my walk through the unknown, the lessons I’m learning along the way, and all of the developments that come out of seemingly nowhere, I urge you to subscribe. It’s no charge to you, unless you’d like to support me in that way with a paid subscription.

This blog will be slowly shifting into more of a travel-focused direction, but with a spin I haven’t seen on any travel blogs before. I’m very excited to overlap my life experience with my travel experience in unexpected ways. I hope you stick with me through all of the changes! It will be a wild ride :)

Celebrate the journey,
Amber

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