It was this time last year that I made this life changing decision. Stepping away from my career and taking some "me" time was an out of the box move for me. In writing that resignation letter, I experienced such a mix of raw emotions. Looking back on it now, all of those emotions had been repressed for a long time and had just begun to bubble up to the surface. In putting my career ahead of everything else in life, I was becoming a very unhappy individual.
When I boarded the plane in early March, I was still not used to the idea that I was leaving a very comfortable life for the uncertainty of new experiences that were ready to challenge everything that I had learned in my 28 years on the planet. Being thrown into uncomfortable circumstances really makes you ask yourself the tough questions and come up with answers you might not like. These truths were a shock to my system but it was a wake up call that only helped me to progress and improve. Here are some of the things I learned:
It is okay that I let myself be emotionally exposed.
Everyone has baggage. From failed friendships, bad relationships, the loss of loved ones and betrayal by people you've trusted - baggage comes in all shapes and sizes. My solution has always been to repress those experiences or ignore the issue. For example, there have been countless times I've just alienated a person that I have had a fight with as opposed to being direct with my feelings and showing how hurt or upset I am with their actions. As much as I thought it was an emotionally mature way of dealing with things and by keeping up appearances, it was the most immature thing anyone can do to resolve (or not resolve) conflict. Other moments have challenged me as well and it has led to a lot of tears, both good and bad. The last time I cried this many times in a year was when my mom passed away back in 2000, but it felt good to let it all out. Keeping it all bottled up inside was making me into such a miserable person, I was barely able to look at myself in the mirror.
I can be a know-it-all but that I have so much left to learn.
This is something I've struggled with all my life. The combination of being stubborn, a lot of education and an A-type personality has amounted to an ego with a terrible "I'm Right, You're Wrong" mentality. In traveling to new places (ten new countries, with three more in 2013!) has really helped me understand that I should shut up once in a while and listen to what other people have to teach me.
That with traveling, everything works out if you just don't stress about it.
I've always thought I was a decent traveler but it turns out I can be a bit of a stress case (especially when traveling with certain personalities). In any case, a big area of discovery comes from letting small things go and allowing yourself to just play with the cards that you're dealt when traveling. If you miss a flight, there's always a next one. If you lose something, it can always be replaced. You'll lose more out of the experience if you latch onto the material things you're missing out on rather than living in the moment.
I learned that I am extremely proud of my cultural background and cannot wait to share it with others.
Having left Taiwan when I was just four years old, I didn't have much of a chance to absorb what it meant to come from this background. I shunned my Taiwanese side after my parents' divorce because of my then dislike for my father. In the last five years, I have come to really appreciate this tiny island off of the coast of China and that there is a whole side of my heritage that I have to be proud of. I've embraced my mother tongue this year and have made great strides in relearning Mandarin. Although I'm still at a 6th grader's level of comprehension, I'm impressed at how much I've learned in four months. I fell in love with the food as evidenced by my 10 pound weight gain and a softer belly than when I left Toronto (it does not disappear no matter how hard I work out). I find myself fascinated with the history that is Taiwan, not only from my fathers' ancestry (Chinese from Fujian province) but from my mothers' side (Nationalists from the Mainland that retreated to the island back in 1949). In fact, I find myself being a better Canadian for embracing my Taiwanese background because it allows me to share with others this vibrant culture and incorporate it into the mosaic that is Canada.
I learned that my family means more to me than I've let them or others know.
In living with them for about five of the last ten months, I've come to love being a part of a family again. I chose to close myself off from family after my parents' divorce and my mom's passing and quickly forgot what a great feeling it is to have people who truly love you around you 24/7.
As much as I love making fun of my dad, I find his emails to bring a smile to my face each time I read them. The one above was sent to me the day after I came out to both him and my mom - it was an email that I sat reading for almost an hour even though it is six simple lines of text. It has taken me a while for me to share this aspect of my life with them and almost two weeks of sleepless nights to craft the right thing to say in person. Finally, after three bottles of beer, I finally worked up the courage and blurted out what I've been holding in for a very long time and all before the clock hit my 29th birthday. Their reaction was nothing short of extraordinary. Having worked up so many different scenarios in my overly active imagination, ranging from the bad to a complete and off the handle rejection, I was astounded by how easy it was for them to look past my sexual orientation and say that they love me no matter what. It was a good hour and so of talking, of crying, and of repeating some of the same things over and over again, but I felt more loved and an enormous weight lifted off my shoulders. As much as Taiwan is a liberal society, there's still a lot for my parents to learn on the issue. But I am so very lucky to have parents who are willing to learn with me as I grow more comfortable in my own skin.
So that's it for my reflections on a wonderful year. I want to thank all of you for being on this journey with me. I want thank my friends from back home who've shown me so much support in my decision to get out there and travel. I want to thank the friends I've traveled with this year for sharing in the laughter, talking through the difficult conversations, and drinking our worries away. I want to thank my new friends that I've met this year for allowing me to get to know you and to share our stories. And I especially want to thank my family for taking me in and making me feel completely okay about being a 29 year old unemployed man living at home with his parents for a year.
My wish for all of you is that you make 2013 a year in which you have an AHA! moment about your life's direction and I look forward to reading your retrospective at the end of next year!
Cheers!
