No Babies, No Regrets & The Myth of “Settling Down”

Recently, someone tweeted me with a “there, there” pat on the head that was to the effect of:

”Oh, you’ll grow out of this digital nomad phase once you settle down and realize the value of community, you poor, naive little harlot.”

Don’t worry, I didn’t skin her.

But, I did make a face like I was burping up a turnip, which is not a nice face to make. It gave me instant PTSD. You know what it reminded me of?

Women in my 20s telling me that I needed to settle down & have a baby “or else I’d regret it.”

The implication: that not doing so was selfish.

Short-sighted.

Foolish.

And, when you’re in your 20s, you’re sorta like: WAIT, ARE THEY RIGHT????? I DON’T KNOW. WHAT IF I AM BEING SELFISH?????

But, by the time you’ve nearly reached 40, you start to feel relief. Thank god I didn’t.

At least, if you’re like me you do.

Throughout all these years, I never had any maternal whip lashings. I expected them to come. You know, eventually. But, they didn’t.

Even as I say that now, it’s tempting to feel a small bit of shame around it, like something’s wrong with me. But, no: what’s wrong is placing generic expectations on your one free & original life.

Sure, I’d feel the maternal instinct kick in every once in a while, when playing with friends’ kids. My friends have the best kids. I don’t know if it’s because they’re my friends and I’m biased, or if it’s because I just have really SMART friends, but all their kids are hyper-intelligent, tiny little pulitzer-prize-winning beasts of pure joy and it’s forever fascinating and fun to watch them and play with them and entertain them and hug them. Omg, do I love hugging them. It’s the sweetest thing in the world. For a minute I think I am maternal. I think it is happening!

And then the urge subsides as soon as the hug is over and I’ve packed up my things and gotten in the car.

And I go back to being pleasantly chuffed by my own life and the shape it’s taken; the way I am able to dedicate my time to the pursuit of a meaningful and rich life in other ways. Other ways that, for whatever reason, seem to fit my spirit better.

However, the whole “once you settle down you'll find peace” thing also made me realize how outdated the perspective is on digital nomadism. THAT WORD. It’s haunting. It’s very much still perceived as an either/or dichotomy:

“If I am a digital nomad, then I am not settled down.”

But, I’ve never felt more settled in my life than I do right now.

At 38.

Spending a significant portion of my life in foreign countries.

And writing from my laptop.

Without a child of my own.

Finding meaning on my plate of pici pasta. And in my friendships. And my writing. And my projects. And my creativity. And my interests. And my passions.

I am SO fulfilled. I’m that bitch doing Duolingo every night, writing books early in the morning, doing work in between, and taking photography workshops around the world when I’m done.

Which is all to say: “If I am a digital nomad, I am not settled down” is a megawatt of a false dichotomy. So is “if I’m a digital nomad, I can’t have a routine.” Both of those are false. Pursuing a life of travel & passion does not automatically disqualify you from a life of quiet contentment. In fact, I think the latter is actually more achievable when you’ve got the freedom to find it where you long to. Down by a lake. Alongside a river. Through a willowy meadow. Inside a cabin. Seated in the middle of a beautiful English garden. Or, hey, in the middle of the hottest new Soho House opening—wherever YOU feel the most like yourself.

Because where you most feel like yourself, is where you find home.

And peace. And contentment. And the feeling that you’ve arrived. This “settled” feeling that, yes, does feel good.

But contrary to popular belief, it doesn’t mean “to stay in one place.”

It means “to stay in step with your heart.”

And, you know I mean business if I just used the word “heart” in an email. 🤮

The new digital nomad isn’t exclusively someone who is traveling around aimlessly with a backpack for a year (we’ve been over this 🤣).

The new digital nomad travels in purposefully designed sprints: they might head to Portugal to spend spring, before returning to their home base in Maine for the summer to rest and re-group, before taking off for The Baltics in the fall. Perhaps they’ll go visit friends in Chile for a couple of weeks, and maybe they’ll go stay with their parents or their cousins for Thanksgiving in Maryland, before heading back to their home base to rest and put up a Christmas tree and bust out some gingham-print pajamas.

It’s a much deeper, more fulfilling pace of life and travel, because you no longer have to rush to fit it all into one year with a limited budget (or whatever most people imagine digital nomads do), because you’ve built a career and a workstyle that supports your greater lifestyle, and therefore you can design your travels to be as long or as short as you’d like, broken up into plenty of different “sprints,” as I like to call them, affording you plenty of time to not only explore and get your sense of awe back….but also stay grounded when you need to, connect with the people that matter to you, form new friendships or nurture old ones, and have the best of BOTH worlds.

Puttering in the garden.

And puttering in the world.

(I do quite like the word “putter.”)

And, what a gift to be able to do both.

This year, it’s about designing your work and your life to support YOU—rather than spending your life supporting everything and everyone else, including old ideas that no longer suit who you are, or what you want.

It’s okay to change course.

It’s okay to want everything.

It’s okay to design your life like a fucking Van Gogh on display in the motherfucking Guggenheim.

And, it’s okay to be selfish.

Because your own personal happiness isn’t selfish: it’s the only thing you have outside of the rest of the world’s expectations, eagerly placed upon you, by well-meaning people who will never get it, because they are not meant to get it, and your only job is to understand what you need to do for you———and then go do it.

There are many ways to do this life.

But only one that’s yours.

SO GO WRITE A FUCKING OPERA.

Love,

Ash
Founder of Selfish Forever, a name that now probably makes more sense