I recently found that my aunt started a research on our genealogy.
Thanks to this research, I finally discovered why I’m never at ease settling in and always thriving to travel, even just to quickly move from one place to another, whatever the term “place” may mean.
I always knew I had a few different European genes in my blood, being the son of French and Italian parents, and having a Polish and a German among my grandparents. But this doesn’t stop just here, as I know now that the previous generations came from other countries, specifically Russia, Romania and Moldova. And this research so far only looks at the last 5 generations!
And right now I live in the UK, and my cousins are on the move as well, which means our generation is now adding even more countries into the mix, should we give birth to our kids where we live.
I never thought about my personal difficulties to settle in as something related to my heritage (and who doesn’t like to travel and see the world?) but it makes perfect sense now that I know the outcome of the research.
There was a long period in my life when I didn’t really want to move from Florence at all, but after I relocated to London it was like I had cut all roots and nothing could stop me anymore. So I started travelling at any given chance. Whether it’s conferences or holidays or short weekend breaks, I take every opportunity to jump on a train or an aeroplane and go somewhere (and as I recently noticed, most of the times I happen to be chasing the sun, but I guess that’s what London does to people).
Since reading the first articles about it years ago, the Digital Nomad life always fascinated me and I have since thought it could definitely fit me like a glove. Though my wife and I have completely different jobs that wouldn’t easily allow us to live such life in full together, one can still find ways to make this happen and travel/work abroad temporarily. Most likely, doing short-ish stints (maybe a month?) before returning to the base. Of course, this won’t be the location-independent status that’s become the trademark of a Digital Nomad, but I’d still be on the road, experiencing places and cultures, working abroad, etc.
As you might have read in previous posts, I’m going to do just that in September/October: first travelling a month through East Asia and North America, then going to Israel for a design conference, then leaving for a break in Morocco. And then it’s going to be Xmas holidays time…
I’m also interested in embarking on this Nomad Cruise everybody is talking about, which seems to be the best of both worlds, being a “moving” conference on a ship 🙂
We’ll see. Right now it’s too early for me to make any plan, but I feel like this is where I’m headed. Coz it’s in my genes: I’m a Nomad.
