Time to Bring the Blog Back
It’s been a while since I last posted – a lot has happened, and while I was worried that an end to my travels would bring about an end to my adventures, I’ve managed to keep things exciting.
In April, after 4 years, including 18 months living in Saudi and traveling, I left my first job out of college. I soon found myself sleeping on my friends’ couches and floors in NYC, looking for an apartment, and working to close funding on my startup, SkillSlate. My team had already made tremendous progress on the funding front while I was away, but we still needed to loop things together. The month between arriving in NYC and closing on funding was the most stressful of my life - not only was it filled with uncertainty, but it was humbling to be back in a Western business environment and getting grilled by venture capitalists.
When the checks arrived, the stress of uncertainty was replaced by the stress and excitement of building a company. We quickly found some office space, and I finally found an apartment to live in, very close to my former home in the Lower East Side. For the first time in 3 years, I’m now living in a place where I expect to continue living for the next year. On one hand, I can finally feel like I’m home, while on the other, I feel very uneasy giving up on my previous life.
While living in Saudi, I endlessly searched for adventure and culture shock. Ironically, I’ve been in a near constant state of culture shock since I returned to NYC. My perspective of what’s “normal” and “weird” has always been a bit shaky, but after living in a place where I became accustomed to everything closing for prayer time, passing a tank on my way out the door every morning, and complicated Saudi gender roles, being in NY actually feels weird. At least in Saudi and in my travels, people realized that I was an outsider and were accepting of any faux pas. Strangely, as much as I love to be back, it feels a lot more foreign than I expected it to.
My biggest fear of coming back to Manhattan was getting bored – I’m probably one of the few people in the world who can say that. I recognize that I was spoiled out of my mind, but after-all, I was making tradeoffs – living in Saudi was challenging, and nothing can make those challenges easier than a random weekend trip to Kenya. In general, the good elements of living in Saudi were really good (the travel, more comfortable lifestyle, adventure) and the bad elements were really bad (lack of freedom/ strict Shari’a law, missing family, lack of stable home), but in the end the good outweighed the bad significantly. It’s a rollercoaster with really big drops and climbs. New York differs in that the good things and bad things aren’t as extreme, and that leads to less intense feelings, and potential boredom. Between dedicating my life to SkillSlate, catching up with old friends, and exploring new parts of the city, I’ve been everything but bored. However, I’m starting to get a bit of a travel twitch – I haven’t been on a plane in almost 3 months, and that makes me feel uneasy. While I love them, weekend trips to go mountain biking in NJ won’t cut it for too long…
Given that I can’t drop things and travel, I’m going to try to relive some of my adventures through the blog. I’ve had thousands of experiences and stories that I haven’t written about, and I’m slowly starting to forget them, which scares me. Additionally, I still have two albums of photos that I haven’t process (from Syria and Nepal), which I plan to finish this weekend. While I’m excited about the future, I think I need a bit more time reliving old memories of great places, amazing food, and unforgettable people before I can fully sink into my new life.
