One second of every day in 2023

Reading time: 3 minutes

My fourth full year as a digital nomad was the most frenetic yet, encompassing three continents, three trips to Europe, and three drives across the United States.

I started the year in Disneyland, then drove from California to Massachusetts so I could fly to Barcelona for work, after which I spent the winter Budapest. When I left five weeks later, it was to kick off a three-month sabbatical that saw me fly back to the USA for the video game convention PAX East before embarking on a five-week tour of Hawaii, Australia, and New Zealand. Then, after a month back in Massachusetts, I headed west for a week in Yellowstone and a month in Missoula, Montana. From there, I briefly hit Salt Lake City, Cheyenne, and Kansas City before settling for a month in Covington, Kentucky, across the river from Cincinnati, Ohio. I then attended WordCamp US in Washington, D.C., and Dragon Con in Atlanta, Georgia, before settling near family in western Massachusetts for the fall. After spending four out of five consecutive weekends flying across the Atlantic — to Málaga, Spain, back to Massachusetts, then to Munich, Germany — I was finally able to spend a restful holiday season with extended family in Connecticut.

As I do every year, I captured one second of video every day of the year.

This year was a long time coming. When I embarked on a nomadic lifestyle in 2019, I immediately took advantage of a company trip to Netherlands to explore that country. I envisioned this being the first of many more international adventures in the years to come.

Then the pandemic happened, and for the next three years, my travels became entirely domestic. Instead of jetting across the globe, I set myself slower goals: take a year to drive from Massachusetts to California, with month-long stops along the way. Spend half a year in just California and all it has to offer. Spend another half a year rediscovering my childhood vacation destinations.

This year, the pandemic abated enough that my workplace resumed international travel. And I had ambitious goals for the three-month sabbatical I was afforded after five years of employment. Those factors combined to pull me in many non-linear directions, rushing from one remote location to another. I attempted to offset that harried first half of the year by having a more grounded fall in my native New England — which was then interrupted by two back-to-back trips to Europe.

Altogether, it’s been one of the most exciting and memorable years of my nomadic life — and also one of the most exhausting. And there’s a metaphor for that in something else I accomplished during my sabbatical.

This spring, I completed a century bike ride: a hundred miles in one day. It was only my second-ever century ride, and the first that I did by myself, without designated support vehicles or rest stops.

When I told the non-athletes in my life what I’d done, they said, “You must’ve been so sore!” And eventually, I was. The day of the ride, I felt like I could’ve kept going forever, carried by inertia and adrenaline. It was the next day that I was sore.

But muscles get sore because they’re getting stronger for even bigger and better things. You don’t strengthen a muscle with the goal of never using it again, any more than you ride a century with the intention of giving up cycling. Training rides, casual rides, group rides — those are all necessary respites from longer endurance rides. But they’re just different speeds at which to achieve the same goal, manifesting the same energy and passion on an unbelievable scale.

I’d spent the pandemic in training for this century year of epic, challenging travel; momentum carried me farther than I’d ever gone, and my muscles are stronger than they’ve ever been. I don’t have another year like last one planned anytime soon; muscles need to rest after being exercised. But having gotten through the last year, I’m ready to keep riding, knowing I can crest any mountain the trail throws at me.

One second at a time.