Day 1: 5 days ago, I left america behind to travel for a year. Pictured are the 3 bags I'm bringing with me: 2 duffels for aconcagua, and 1 black bag I'll travel the world with for a year.I don't have a lot of pictures from that day, because honestly it was an extremely stressful and difficult time. I simply did not have enough time in the last month of my time in America to get my affairs in order. I had to move out of my place, visit my family for a week, have a going away party, wrap up work, work out 1-3 hours everyday for aconcagua, and do a million errands: buy gear, buy stuff for my 1-bag, go to the dentist, optomitrist, figure out healthcare, cancel all my reccuring memberships, get vaccines(COVID + travel vaccines). On top of this, the boots I had bought for aconcagua were tearing up my feet something horrible(see last picture). They don't sell the types of boots I needed in America, so it was a real scramble to try and find something that worked. I ended up going to different 2 bootfitrers and endless trips to the store for socks. I'm still unsure if what I settled on will work, send your hopes and prayers to me On top of all that, the relationship that I had been in for 2 1/2 years came to a mutually agreed planned end. Having the emotional bandwidth to deal with that on top of everything else proved impossible.Time moves forward whether you want it to or not. I ended up staying up till 5am packing and got 2 hours of sleep. Some stuff I shipped to myself got to me too late and had to be left behind in America. I wasn't able to go to the dentist or get my COVID booster, and I wasn't able to return a bunch of purchases I needed to.But now that I've crossed the barrier from not-travelling to travelling, things are less stressful. I'm climbing mountains nonstop for the next 1 1/2 months, which is a different kind of stress, but enjoyable. There are still some loose ends I need to tie up, but there is a looser timeline for them.People sometimes idolize long-term travel, but it's not all sunshine and rainbows. Still, it's better than working 🙂