MAYHEM

The decision to do what I was going to do was made on December 31st, 2018 in a small café in Trinidad, Cuba. This meant one more year of working in my job and then yea, nah cheers.

The day I handed in my resignation at work at the end of September was the day when this project became real. It felt really good, at the same time there also was a lot of respect towards what was lying in front of me like „ok right, seems like I’m really doing this“. Having no way back sometimes helps.

Before I could leave there were a few things to be taken care of and – oh wonder - it turned out to be an awful lot to do. The most important ones were to get an idea of what to pack for the next 12-or-so months and to box the rest. Also, as I would give up my beloved apartment, I would have to hand it over in a good an clean condition. After about 8 years of living there, this meant some repair work as well as a paint job. Sounds feasible, but becomes hard when you

1.     start late

2.     still work your full time job

3.     have to visit family over the weekend

4.     have family visiting you over the weekend

5.     follow all your other hobbies and side job

6.     squeeze it into the normal end-of-year mayhem with christmas get-togethers, farewell parties and your own birthday among others

Surely there was no way I possibly could have seen all this coming. #classic

Needless to say, even though I had more or less 3 months of time for all this, it literally all came down to the wire and I found myself packing my bag the very last night before takeoff - just to realize the bag I was planning to use didn’t fit (which was certainly not helping my cause in that moment).

Luckily a few friends had helped me finishing the painting one night before, so this was already ticked off the list and I could make the exit as planned (thanks again, M + J!).