Hello from Sri Lanka
Random, I know. But I'm here and here's why.
I meant to write sooner, but here I am dropping into your inbox almost three full weeks into my four-month adventure through Asia. I kept my trip here mostly under wraps, leaking clues through book titles and airline tickets on my Instagram and blog in the days leading up to leaving. Now I’m here on the other side of the world and being affirmed again and again that I made the right choice to venture to the somewhat random destination of Sri Lanka, and mostly through the people I’ve been fortunate to connect with here already.
It’s been a ride so far! Here I am feeding rescued elephants at the Elephant Freedom Project last week.
The context for this trip is mainly tied to the state of my life and career at the moment. While I’ve always been a bit flighty, never staying too long in one place and forever feeling pulled by an inner desire to just keep moving, exploring, experiencing…growing, Asia just made sense as my “where next.” It’s affordable, a new frontier for me, and brimming with cultural storytelling potential. Oh and there’s plenty of surf, too.
I’m here as much on a mission to travel and explore a new place as I am to see if Sri Lanka’s where I might find lift off in my career as a freelance travel writer for publications. This teardrop-shaped island nation off the coast of southeast India should be on everyone’s radar, and yet it isn’t. I think I’ve met just three other Americans in my three weeks here so far (the Russians and Europeans are aplenty). But where are all the Americans?! It just doesn’t make sense.
My hope in being here is to get more than a few stories commissioned about this place and to tell its tale in ways that lure more of us (wherever you’re from) to the land of king coconuts, still wild elephants, and spicy cuisine. The power of positive tourism in a place like this is exponential. I want to play my part and my part, I’m beginning to realize, is through sharing, showing, telling through words. And doing so in my way with the stories that meet me on my path. This is what I’m here for.
So, while I haven’t been great at taking you along so far (unless you’re following along on Instagram and Facebook where I’ve done alright in that department), I’m actually not going to begin now. The foot tracks, blog posts, and (fingers crossed) commissioned articles doing just that will come later, once I’m off this thrilling ride called traveling Sri Lanka with high hopes.
Right now, all I want to say and share is that this right here is me stepping into the life of my dreams by living it, not waiting for it. In the past, I’ve been able to travel the world because of a steady income from jobs that didn’t exactly light me up. I was grateful for the freedom and flexibility that they offered, but is that the life I want to be living? Where I sacrifice one thing to have another thing? It isn’t and it wasn’t. There was always going to be an expiration date on it.
October of last year was that expiration date when the company I was editing for crumbled and I was out of a steady income pretty much overnight while mid-Eurotrip. Once I got past the shock of the loss, I saw it as a good thing, because in the lead up to the unexpected event, I’d already been preparing to step more fully into what it is I wanted to be doing. Writing and traveling. Traveling and writing. I knew it was undeniably time to step even more fully into that life of my dreams.
So, that’s what I’ve been doing ever since, along with pet sitting, and someway, somehow the money and opportunities have flowed in perfect timing. It’s scary, yes. I’m still learning how to feel at ease with the unknowns of the finances. But it’s worth it. And it’s freeing really. To realize that even five months into living without a steady income and with no savings to speak of, I’m still going. Not strongly, but I’m going. And that’s all that matters. I’m still out here living and working as I want to, not as I have to. I’m provided for by dollars earned doing things I want to be doing. This to me is success.
So, with you all as my witness, Sri Lanka’s the first time I’m stepping out into the world since I returned to the U.S. jobless in November. I’m out here to show myself, and whoever’s watching, that fortune really does favor the brave. That when leaps are taken in alignment with your soul’s deepest desires, the net does appear.
It’s brave of me to even claim this so publicly before it’s here in ways that feel comforting and sustainable, but I’m claiming it anyway because 1) I’m committed to it and 2) it has actually been sustainable already (verdicts still out on comforting). There have been so many little moments already that have shown me that I’m right on track, the chance meetings with all the right people, the way just enough has made its way to my account to pay each month’s credit card bill in full, the uncannily timed writing and pet sitting opportunities that have put that money in my account, the suddenly functioning, albeit modest, affiliate income on my blog, and more.
I said at the start of this post that Sri Lanka has continued to affirm that I made the right choice in coming here. And I mean that. This is a place where your nervous system can actually rest, where kindness and generosity is the currency, and where beauty constantly meets the eye and knocks on the heart. Sri Lanka is a place that softens a person and that’s just what I needed as I take this first brave step.
I’m so glad I started here. I’m so glad you now know why. As always, I take you along on my journey, sometimes literally with travelogue-style posts and other times more like this, as a window into what’s at work behind-the-trip. Either way, I do it because I realize I’m walking a path so many want to, but don’t. I want to show you it’s safe to forge your own foot tracks and follow your heart.
Here’s to taking leaps in life and refusing to settle. This adventure’s really only just begun.
With love from Sri Lanka,
Amber
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