A Year in Review: 2015

the edge is change.
it’s what you don’t see coming…
so get out of your comfort zone
and deal with it.

Last December I left the nine-to-five data entry job that I landed at a private corporation after college and started a commission-based sales and marketing job in property management.  It’s like being a real estate agent, but selling apartments instead of houses, and moving every few weeks from project to project like a consultant.

If that sounds crazy to you – you’re right, it is.  In 2014, I lived quietly in Gainesville, Georgia. In 2015, I put everything into storage while I live on the road out of two suitcases.  By the numbers this past year, I spent 90 days at “home” and 275 days traveling.  I worked for six wildly different property management companies.  I visited eleven new states and provinces.  This lifestyle isn’t for everyone, and I won’t live this way forever.  But I’m amazed at how much of a growing experience it’s been.

Why the change?  Couldn’t I have had growth without making such drastic changes?  Was there any big-picture reasoning in this decision?  And most importantly, why should you care about all this?

Lisa Martinovic wrote a poem called “The Edge (is where I want to be)”.  Here it is in part (You can read the whole poem at: The Edge by Lisa Martinovic):

baby, if you’re not on the edge
you’re sleepwalking through been there done that
you’re stuck watching reruns of somebody else’s life
in the great mushy middle
where all the droning, moaning masses live
and eat and act and dress and think alike
and see the same movies
so they can have the same conversations and then
dream the same dreams
if they dream at all…

sure, the middle’s safe
it’s safe like hot cocoa, life jackets and training wheels
if that’s how you want to live
if you don’t ever want to break the rules
take risks
grow up
past your precious fears and life-strangling limitations…

but if you’re tired and weary and battered
if you can’t take one more a******
riding herd on your wild and precious life
if you’re mad or sad or bored enough
to wake up and do something
if you’re ready to feel the pain of the great
gaping wound your life has become
then, friend!

quit your job
quit smoking
quit whining
leave that jerk
write that poem
go dancing
get sober
take a road trip—a dare—a spin—a lover—a chance
honey, break down and cry if that’s what it takes
then pick yourself up
and for all you’re worth run
don’t walk
to the edge

I heard this poem in late 2014 at a college forensics tournament. I tried not to get emotional, but failed (not cool behavior in a forensics tournament, by the way) as the truth hit me: I was not, and never had been, part of America’s middle masses.  Why was I trying to pretend to be, in my corporate job and comfortable lifestyle?  I am, as a point of fact, WEIRD.  Bookish, prone to overshare with strangers, terrible taste in handbags, head stuffed with the offbeat, the tangential, and the obscure.  Furthermore, I’m ambitious, driven, passionate, competitive. I thrive off intensity and challenges.  The middle is where most people belong… but me?  To make the most of my limited time on earth, I had to pursue the Edge or risk suffocating in the uncooked vanilla pudding of a bland existence.

So I did.  And I’m so glad I did.  The list of ways I’ve grown in 2015 grew overwhelming when I sat down to write it.  In 2015 I learned how to:

• Buy my own phone, set up my own phone account and pay my own phone bill
• Move from working with people from government-subsidized housing to working with landed, wealthy retirees and back again
• Rent my own vacation spot
• Use Air BnB
• Use a casino slot machine
• Cook steak on a rooftop gas grill
• Drink alcohol like a responsible adult
• Drive in strange cities
• Pay a parking meter in strange cities (some only take quarters?! Medieval nonsense)
• Book and catch a flight
• Give 100% in my job as a leasing specialist
• Commute in Atlanta traffic
• Pack all my belongings, clean, and be gone from a corporate apartment in an hour
• Use Chamber of Commerce resources in any city or town
• Find a hairstylist and manicurist in a strange city
• Go out in strange cities and make friends
• Eat in restaurants alone (you never think about how awkward this is until you have to do it)
• Make coffee
• Write beautiful letters home
• Love vintage antiques
• Take advantage of online bank account returns

And I could add so much more.  As the wheel turns and a new year begins, I’m looking forward to all 2016 will hold. I’m also looking forward to continuing this blog.  I hope you follow it and enjoy sharing adventures with me!  Starting this blog in the new year, I want to:

1. Write more openly about my job. When I started this blog a year ago, I was new to it and could barely articulate my role.  Now I feel confident enough to bring you into it… and my job is anything but boring, so I think you’ll love it.
2. Write more openly about complex and controversial topics. I’ve avoided doing this for the past year. I’m a strong personality with strong opinions, but I’d rather sit on those opinions than alienate my friends… and I’ll do anything to keep the internet trolls away.  But this approach has unfortunately caused me some mental atrophy.  This year I’ll write more about what I believe.
3. More updates on my projects in progress. I keep epic to-do lists that keep me focused. I’ll be blogging about some of those projects for accountability and for your feedback.
4. Make use of my Facebook and Twitter accounts. Follow The Dauntless Princess on Facebook and TheDauntlessPrincess @DauntlessTravel on Twitter… I’m excited about developing these sites.

Anyway, back to the last and most important question I asked above: why should you care about all this, a long poem and a lot of personal introspective musing from me?  Consider when was the last time you reached the end of a year and felt no regrets… When you felt like you had been fully the person you wanted to be?  I always made the standard new year’s resolutions: lose ten pounds, get organized, save money.  But these goals always fell by the way for me because disorganization, unmotivation, and even extra weight were just symptoms of a larger dissatisfaction.  If you’re where you need to be, that is so great.  But if you need this poem as much as I did, if the words resonate with you as much as they did with me… then run, don’t walk, to the Edge.

the edge is not available on your cell phone, iPod, satellite dish
or anywhere in the googleable universe
the edge does not twitter, it THUNDERS.

and everything is initiation on that sharp unforgiving edge.

With Love for 2016,

The Dauntless Princess