I would argue that most of us have a breaking point. There comes a time when we cannot take the stress, the chaos, and the hustle anymore. Some of us will break much easier than others, just as some people may break more frequently than others. I did not expect to have my “mini life crisis” only this far into adulthood. To be honest, I’ve only been “adulting” for a year or so now and already feel like a break from everything is long overdue. I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a specific “incident” that pushed me to make this decision. The dream of volunteering abroad was always in my mind and had been something I was thinking about doing but never quite made the move.

I had been picking up tons of extra hours at work to fill up my time. This was maybe a month or so after my grandpa had passed and the end of my relationship, and I needed a good distraction. Unfortunately, I found myself just going through the motions of leaving for work, coming home, going to the gym, and doing it all over again. My daily tasks began feeling very robotic and meaningless, and I started to take notice of it.

I was at work when one of my patients unexpectedly passed away on me. This was by no means my first patient passing or my first time in a critical situation. However, it was the first time as an RN that I felt it affected me. For some reason, this situation and this patient had an impact on me, and I was a bit flabbergasted by everything that happened too quickly.

I had been talking to this guy (he who shall not be named), and we had just been texting probably twenty minutes before this fiasco. I walked into the break room for a breather and five minutes to myself and decided to call him. I was upset, a little shook up by everything that happened with my patient and just wanted to hear about something else, maybe even get a pep talk. Making that phone call was when I realized my number was now blocked, and I uncovered a lot more details about this person that I thought I knew and trusted. This was actually someone I knew for a very long time (10 plus years) and felt very safe and comfortable talking to. Dramatic, I know, but this is when I booked the Thailand trip.

I had been thinking about volunteering long-term for a while at that time and was itching to leave the country again. I did some research on medical volunteering trips and then found the volunteer opportunity in Thailand on the elephant sanctuary. It was not medically involved at all, but I was drawn to it. I emailed the company that night and submitted my first part of the application. Within that week, the down payment was paid, and my commitment was made. A commitment to be away from my home, my job, my friends, boy drama, all of it.

So, yes. I would like to say it was the death of my patient that made me book the escape. But honestly, it was the boy. It was the minor heartbreak that made me want to run to a remote area in the world “where there will hopefully be more elephants than people,” as I said at the time. My outlook on what I hope to gain from this trip has changed over this summer. I no longer feel like I am going to run, I look at it as a chance to grow. I see myself going so that I can open up new opportunities for myself. For the opportunity to transform into a better version of myself.

Yes, this epic trip only came to be because a silly boy made me cry. However, I have learned that when I channel my big emotions into something meaningful, it will almost always end up amazing. A quick decision became the motivation behind a complete mindset shift. My summer turned into “my path to Thailand,” in which I would be looking introspectively to do the work to be ready to go on such a big trip alone. I realized that in order to be ready for growth, I had to remove certain things in my life. I also had to be ready to take risks to make serious changes to live the life that I wanted.

The beauty of my resilient personality is that the bounce back is always inevitable. I quite often find that stressful situations, heartbreaks, etc. usually result in me doing something radically productive. I probably would not have booked the trip to Thailand without the minor heartbreak. I may have continued to stay complacent and unsure of what was next. While I’m still a little unsure of what is next for me, I am sure of my immediate future. In less than a week, I will be alone and exploring a new country, which makes me equally nervous and excited. I can only hope that this new opportunity will offer me guidance on what the next steps in life are… the countdown begins 🙂

Rhae:)

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