Why I Roam - Christine's Perspective

My name is Christine Hynson and I love to roam. Whether I’m taking all of my belongings with me and roaming between states or I’m literally just roaming around a town or forest, roaming brings me peace. For me roaming allows me to do nothing particular except experience what there is to experience around me. Even on long drives in between homes, the travel itself allows me to do nothing but experience things passing by without any preconception or expectation. I am just there to be a part of whatever is happening in that moment.

I read an article recently that described how important it is for the mind to have true down time which excludes even meditation because your brain is still exerting effort towards something. The article’s author mentioned that the only true downtime many of us have is while showering which is why so many great ideas are born during a nice hot shower. For me, roaming gives my brain this downtime – though maybe not quite as intensely as the article suggests – where I don’t have to exert any sort of specific effort, except to drive or walk which are innate things. My brain is free to wander as my body is also wandering in a sense and it makes me feel aligned and inspired by things around me that may appear mundane otherwise.

I wanted more of this feeling, but so far, my husband, Gene, and I lived a life that was nonstop. We got married, moved to South Carolina where we continued to move to new locations every year (ironically not as fun as the type of moving we do now) until we finally bought a house…which we sold after just over a year to move across the country to the San Francisco Bay Area. We decided to live right in the middle of bustling downtown San Jose where we could never get away from the noise, no matter how high we moved up the apartment building. We felt like we had to go “experience” our new home constantly which meant going to restaurants or breweries or events, etc. San Jose is not really a city that you can meander around in because you need to be aware of you and your belongings at all times due to high crime rates. Not to mention Silicon Valley's (accurate) reputation for making you feel like if you aren’t moving, you’re losing.

Then, the pandemic began. My husband’s job stayed stable, though he did voluntarily change jobs. However, I got laid off right in April of 2020 and assumed my life was over. I filed for unemployment and tried to get a job as fast as I could because what else was I supposed to define myself by if not my job or my career path or my successes as defined by capitalism? The job I accepted was the worst job I’ve ever had and the environment was so toxic that it made me more cynical and distrustful every day that I was there. When I finally got the courage to quit, I was still too afraid to confront anyone, so I left work on a Friday afternoon, scheduled an email to be sent Monday morning and never went back (this was wildly satisfying by the way). I knew I was worth more than how I had been treated and how I was treating myself, but I had never had to think too hard about how I evaluate my worth. I’d been generally successful in my life so far. The realization that maybe I could find something else to define myself by, something that I chose and had more control over, was a game changer.

I did end up getting another job that I wasn’t really excited about, but at the same time I started my Master’s Degree in Industrial/Organizational Psychology. Long story short, I had my Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology because I enjoyed the subject, but no one ever told me I needed experience to actually get a job and that no one would care that I had a college degree. It meant basically nothing in the real world (this is not true for all degrees, but it is true for a Psychology degree with no research experience and no relevant job held during college). My Master’s Degree was meant to put me on a level playing field with everyone else and give me a wider range of options for jobs (so far it really has). Also at the same time, I started letting myself dream. What did I love most? Wine, good food, exploring new places, being outside, reading. I was distressed because how could I possibly fulfill any of those things in a career? Then came that realization: why do those things have to be fulfilled by a career? Some people find their passions in their careers, but I realized that I am not one of those people – at least not right now. So how could I fulfill those passions living in a cacophonous, concrete, city center like san Jose? Then I had an idea.

We already had plans to leave San Jose and move to Santa Cruz which is a lovely, peaceful little coastal town with a bit of hippie vibe where there are volleyball junkies during the day, drum circles at dusk and beach bonfires at night. I still hope to live there one day, but the timing wasn’t quite working out for the place we planned to live there. I suggested that we put most of our stuff in storage and take sort of an extended trip up to Northern California and above, but we couldn’t find a place to stay that we were in love with. After taking a weekend trip to San Diego and falling in love with it, we decided to start there. So began our new life - roaming from place to place. People called us digital nomads, but we didn’t really see our lifestyle reflected in the intensity of other digital nomads that were traveling to Bali, Portugal, Australia and spending their time swimming with dolphins or hiking up Mt. Everest. That’s a little extreme, but still, all we do is live a pretty normal life except that we both work remote (which is arguably normal now) and move to a new city every 3-ish months. We live in houses, cook food at home, try new restaurants, work during the week, take weekend trips to explore surrounding areas, take our cats to the vet, go to the eye doctor…a normal life except we don’t get stuck in the monotony of our lives as we tended to do so often before where ever we lived. We also somehow feel like we can slow down because we don't have to feel pressured to take big trips and "get away" because we always have something to look forward to.

Now you don’t have to move every three months to not get stuck in a rut, but for me, it’s how I’m training myself to appreciate what I have and where I am so that whenever or if ever I settle down again, that mind set will be a habit for me. This blog and site and brand is something that my husband and I are very excited to develop alongside my aunt and uncle who decided to begin roaming themselves. As of this first post, my husband and I have been roaming for about 7 months. We are still new to this, but we can’t wait to share what we have learned, will learn, and to get connected with more people along the way. Come roam with us.