So packing up your shit and getting ready to fly to South America sounds easy. You pack your clothes, catch a cab to the airport, and off you go. But for some reason, for me, instead of feeling 100% excited, I am half filled with a sense of overpowering sadness to leave this place. The memories of mid-Novermber continent hopping from one year ago come flooding back into my brain and I am almost at loss for words. I almost have nothing to say. I’ll try.

When I came to Berlin a year ago I was in a very difficult place in my life. I had just sold my business for next to nothing, had issues with a girl I loved, lost friends and family, and didn’t know what the future held for me. I jumped on the first plane I could find and never looked back. Anything was better than staying where I was. I had to get out.

Now, it’s a year later, and I’m a new person. My new business has far greater potential than the one I lost, things are shored up on the family end, and old friends have shown me the meaning of loyalty and patience. But aside from that, I am finally 100% happy with the direction things are going for me. I feel for the first time in my life that I am finally able to pursue the things that make me happy. And the funny thing, is that it comes at a time when all manner of typical measurement would tell you otherwise. My business has no employees, no inventory, no office. It’s a series of ones and zeros encrusted on a flake of silicon on a web server in Canada. I have no car, no house, no furniture. In fact, I have so little personal possessions that my suit case is half empty for this flight. I live in a foreign country with literally one friend and don’t understand anything people are saying around me almost all the time. So on paper, it’s a far cry from the blooming late twenty something, well on his way to being a mature and polished man. Yet for me, there is no comparison