Chewy
Some of you may wonder what I’ve been up to for the last while… many of you may not care. Even more of you might ask ‘who the hell is Chewy?’. All are reasonable… some days I wonder that myself.
The truth is I haven’t been keeping very good tabs on this site lately and even worse with social media. I have a lot of good tales to tell and advice to give but finding the time in between everything else has been a bit of a struggle lately. I’ve been trying out a few projects that I may let you know about later and that has taken a lot of time. Also included in this has been many loud and yell-based conversations with friends where we discuss our travel plans, offending each other in the way only true friends can. This is my life… I know you’re jealous.
Getting back to the social media aspect of things, you probably have noticed I’m really bad at putting stuff on Facebook and my Twitter presence in non-existent. There’s this tendency among people these days, particularly older people, to assume that anyone of a certain age is obsessed with social media and loves using it. I am of that certain age and I can honestly say I could care less about it. I never thought there would be a technological advance that I would say no to, as even more recent ones like tablet adoption and cloud bases services have me stoked – but social media is fucking annoying. I would much rather spend my time doing things than telling people I’m going to do them.
So what have I been doing? Well, I’ve been writing a lot. Like, a lot. Some things for this site and some things for other things. Vague, I know. I haven’t been travelling because I’m trying to be good about saving my money through this winter even though I get a freaking metric shitload of emails from travel companies advertising cheap getaways to everywhere I can think of. Don’t think I haven’t been tempted… I’m just really enjoying climbing out of the debt load I was in.
There is this assumption that travel writers need to be travelling all the time in order to be authentic… but I’ve never been one to subscribe to this philosophy. Like I said before, I’d rather be doing things than telling people about them so I usually save my writings for once I’ve gotten home and have reflected on them. How Wordsworthian of me, I know… but then again I’ve always been a poet at heart.
So does that mean that I’m not going to travel for a while and instead only reflect on the past, muse on my wishes and comment on things I only know of by way of tertiary means? Of course not. I have a few sweet travel plans lined up for the summer that could be wicked great if they do pan out (they depend on people and money… as always), but even if I don’t, I realize that travel isn’t just getting on a plane and using your passport but doing something different, whether it’s a place or an outlook.
I hope everyone is doing well and living the good life whether or not that’s on the road of just dreaming of it. There’s nothing wrong with living vicariously through others when you can’t do those things yourself, but every now and then you should actually do it yourself. Even if it’s something you won’t like – it will give you a point of reference on what you do like if nothing else. That’s how I try to live my life and, well, I have no complaints!
