I was incredibly privileged to spend a month in Naramata, B.C. doing a Workaway. It was my first Workaway so I wasn’t really sure what to expect but I honestly couldn’t have asked for a more wonderful experience. I arrived in Kelowna, B.C. on 22nd January and my hosts Edith and Harry came to pick me up with their two dogs Jasper and Winnie – my housemates for the next month. Even though it was dark, it was the most beautiful drive three quarters of the way round the Okanagan Lake to Naramata.
Naramata is a tiny little town in B.C., just north of Penticton. It has a café, a grill/bar and a grocery store. That’s it. Even being that small, it is still bigger than where I grew up and it quickly felt like home. Edith and Harry are two of the kindest, most welcoming people I have ever had the joy to meet. They immediately made me feel like part of the home, involving me in meal times and evening movies. Jasper and Winnie also immediately made me feel welcome, instantly demanding cuddles and play time for every waking minute – I was only too happy to oblige.
My first two weeks, Edith and Harry were at the house with me and the dogs, I spent my days helping out around the house with cleaning chores, walking the dogs with Edith and helping out with the grocery shop. For the second two weeks, my hosts were on vacation so I was on dog and house sitting duty. I loved these two weeks. It gave me some time to rest and recharge after 3 months constantly on the move. I hadn’t realised how much I needed to just sit and be for a while. And Naramata was the perfect place to do that. The views are spectacular, nestled on the side of the lake, with mountains on the opposite shore and vineyards all around. My daily walks with the dogs, and sitting looking out over the scenery, were the perfect ways to get some headspace and start thinking about my future plans.
The short answer is I still don’t have a clue. The longer answer is a little more complicated. I came out to Canada because I was feeling lost in life. I still don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing in life. Every time I start thinking about going back to the U.K. and what that life would look like, I get completely overwhelmed. I still don’t know what I want to do as a career and my brain won’t let me start thinking about it. I just can’t seem to compute thoughts around future careers, or even work in general at the moment. My brain just goes into panic mode and I can’t get past the first job advert. In all honesty, I think I’m still completely burned out from my previous job roles – they were incredibly stressful and ridiculously mentally taxing. I was constantly dealing with high risk situations for 6 years and it’s left me utterly drained. I don’t know what a working life looks like for me anymore.
This got me thinking about my life going forward in more general terms. I think I’d started falling back in to the trap of expecting myself to have a “normal”, conventional life once I’d finished travelling Canada. But when I really think about it, I’m not sure that’s what I want. I think about going back to living the same week on repeat – some combination of working, sleeping, socialising and chores – and whilst for some people that sense of routine is perfect, I don’t think it’s the best fit for me anymore. I’ve tried it and I ended up here, wanting something different.
All this isn’t to say that I don’t want any kind of stability – I do. I want the stability of knowing that I don’t want a conventional life. I want to know I am not tied indefinitely to a place, that I can move on if that place is no longer bringing me happiness. I love having stable friendships and relationships with my family, but they don’t go away just because I’m not always in the same time zone as them. At some point, I want a relationship, but that will be with someone similar to myself, who isn’t necessarily looking for the white picket fence and 2.5 kids. I know that life is not for me.
I know enough to know what I don’t want my life to look like. I wouldn’t necessarily say that I therefore know what I do want it to look like. I’m still figuring that out. But right now, travelling around, meeting new people, having incredible experiences, just focussing on enjoying myself is exactly what I need to be doing. The rest will figure itself out somewhere along the way.
Ro Wells Travel 
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