Hey Gang,
I leave for NY tomorrow before heading to Peru for a 6 weeks and feeling compeltly anxious and overwhelemd. Sitting in a cafe and my heart is racing so fast Im not sure if I should call 911 or continue to slowly obbsorbe all I am feeling a maintiane my cool and a cucmber mask while panic contionues to grow. Im not quite sure what is the root of my anxiety today but I know there is a lot of change coming up in the next few weeks and sometiumes transitions with unknown outcomes can seriosuyl feel all comsiming.
I havent written in a while and have beening thinking allot about out and wanted to come here and spew my word vomit out of my brain and place my thougths on paper. Late last year I decided to go off social media, I felt like I wasnt having a good relationshio with it, spending endless nights scrolling through instagram and tiktok. Using as a place filler in akwards pauses and down town. It was stunting my creativiity and taken a seriously toll of my self confidence and career confidence. I was working at Whole Foods running their floral deparemtn thinking about how many years of educations landed me hear feeling inadiquet and like I should be doing more. Thank god for my husband who always reminds me to take a minute and realize how much I take on. Out side of my day to day I was working a serieos of odd jobs from working at farmers markets, assisting wedding florist atempting to be a travel writer and working in bakereis. While my Whole foods job was not fufilling all my needs it allowed me the structure and space to explore these fun odd jobs and build a nextowrk or amzing people here in Charleston. And to my whole foods family- while teh job wasnt perfect I am geatful for the opperunity and It allowed me the time and space to gain carrerr confidence and the space to explore what my be my next step. I’ve alwasy been hard on myself comparing my past jobs to those of my friends but I also know that I’ve gotten the oppetunity to travel and explore hobbies not everyone else has the luxery to explore. In that I am very greatfull.
I think about everything to the utmost extream and in excusiating detail. When I decided to start my substack back in January I had visions of being an overnice sucess and thinking about all the doors in would open for me. I placed unrealistic goals on my self and “pumping out post” that my lifestyle at the time could not handeel and also the platform hubled me quickly.
Social media has never been my median, i love doing thinkgs and taking photos but i tense up when it comes to creating captions and angonzie over editing- it seriously drains me. I always thought I would market myslef in everything beign genuine and authentic more so cause I watned to reliave myself of editing.
The first few posts fueled me, I always loved writing and It felt so good exercizing the skill again. I wasn’t posting the most exciting content but I was having fun. Enter … CHAT GPT - I know I will get hate but I am a victim to using it. I was diagnosed with Dyslexia as a young kid and was in and out of tutors my entire life. I was fortunate to never see my diagnosis as a disability dispite the rest of the worlds lag in undstetatind it ( just yesturday someone said to you “ oh are you still dyslexic? you read that so well) anyways my freinds and family memebers are well trainded in the decoding anna text and known that correcting me is frustrating and that they have to read around the “ hmmm that doesnt sound quit right off word” I am much better over the phone but even then so struggle to some times put my thoughts into words.
When I first learned of chat gpt I thought” WOAH” this is great, it can clean up all my grammar and spelling errors. And sure at first it felt harmless and it gave me a little confidnce known that people wouldnt be criqizigin my speling ( which I still struggle with when texting or emailing new people) in college Grammerly was my best friend but didnt catch everything. Unfortuntly all it took was one article when I felt a little sleepy where I used CGPT as more then just the grammar police and I starting using it as a crutch. I grew less interested in my writing and more consiounous of what I was spewing out. It was not the vision I had when I set out to start this substack. My last article was a challenge to get out and in all honestly I am not proud of it but mentaly just needed it to be done so I could move on.
Monday was my last day of work and I’ve been thinking alot out what is next and how my next moves can be more career forming rather then a job. I love travel more then anything and have always put off working withi in the industry in fear of it ruining my hobby but with each year and each unfuffiling job i realized I was going about this all wrong. I’m not 100% sure what I will do next but I am exploring positions in the travel realm that are remote so that I no longer need to decided between working and traveling.
I don’t want to stop writing, but I needed to take some space to reorganzie why I am on this platform. Maybe at some point I will gear it to assit as a career tool but for now I want to fall back in love with writing and inparticualr journaling. In my upcoming trip I want to write and share my experinces for myself and for those who wish to follow along and share their love of travel. I hope that I can continue to be genuine and promise no more AI assist- its not worth it.
In the spirit of starting over and beining geniuinue I have not edited this post. In all honesty I will continute to use grammerly for spelling and I hope that is okay.
I have also redownloaded instagram becasue there are many poepl in my life that want to follow my travels and I do not want to deny them of travel pic!
I look foward to this new chapter of using this platform!
XOXO
Anna Roman
p.s. vibe of the summer will be Lorde’s What Was That!
What a beautiful and honest post! Wishing you safe travels! Can’t wait to hear about journey!