Defining “Home”

Defining “Home”

“Birds need a nest, and yet they still fly.” ~ Gloria Steinem

In our digital age, more and more people work from home.  A few commonplace examples of this 21st century lifestyle are: corporate employees who log in remotely, digital nomads and entrepreneurs with location independent businesses, freelancers who work virtually, and the growing number of students and teachers of online learning.

My partner, Carl, is an example of a remote working corporate employee. And I am a digital nomad, an entrepreneur with a location independent business devoted to helping others create a life they don’t need a vacation from.

This rapidly changing virtual landscape is creating changes in not only how we think about and do our work, but also how we think about and identify ‘home’.  How one defines home is, of course, very personal – and it’s also fluid – often changing along with changes in circumstances, relationships, and stages of life.

For me personally, home has been many things: It’s been a place I can’t wait to return to, and it’s been a place I’ve been eager to leave. It’s been a place I’ve identified by an address; other times by a town, a city, a state, a country, a continent, or hemisphere.

For reasons I don’t fully understand, the most sincere definition of home I’ve ever held, has been to identify home as Planet Earth.  And even that at times feels like it only tells part of the story. 😉

I am a digital nomad and citizen of the world. ‘Home’ is not just defined by location, but by the people in my life. In other words, if my heart’s not there, my home is certainly not there.  I have friends and family who live not only across the country, but around the globe.

Despite having such an expansive definition of home, I also really like my bed and having a home to come home to.

For many years, this dichotomy made for quite the dilemma.

Do you relate?

If home is where the heart is, and your heart spans across continents, how do YOU define home?

I’ve come to embrace that, for me, home is untethered and too complex and big to be defined by one place.

In other words, I’ve stopped trying to answer that question.

And with this release, came a new question:

>> Where is my home-base? <<

Home-base doesn’t get me confused, and it doesn’t cause me to feel flustered or confined by its definition.

Home-base is where my bed is. It’s where my clothes and toothbrush are. It’s where I return, after wandering and journeying based on my unapologetically expansive definition of ‘home’.

This works for me.  To know where my nest is, and I still fly.

How about YOU?  Ready to expand YOUR definition of home?

Want to live and work from anywhere? If you haven’t already, click here to grab the FREE Video Training: 3 Simple Strategies to Get Started with Nomadic Living and get you ready for the journey of a lifetime! 

If you’re ready to make this lifestyle your own, join us for Nomadic Living 101

I want to hear from you. Please share your thoughts on these questions:

==> Where’s ‘home’ for you?

==> What does ‘home’ mean to YOU?

==> How do YOU define it?

The Expanding Tara-tour-y!

If you’ve been following my recent journey, you know that I’ve embarked on an exciting new adventure in nomadic living and remote working. Together with my boyfriend and dog, we are on an open-ended road trip in our 20-foot RV/mobile tiny house.

Last week we were lakeside in northern North Carolina [enjoying sunsets, campfires, simplicity and peaceful serenity while we did our work and followed the rhythms of nature]. The week before, we were in Richmond, VA [went salsa dancing, went on a walking tour of the Liberty Trail, ate yummy falafel, and on Sunday tooled around an artsy little area called Carytown …with no cares about time or to-do’s – the way Sunday is supposed to feel but honestly hadn’t in years…]

And now we’re in the Raleigh/Wake Forest area staying with my step-sister Kellie and her delightful family. Well technically, we’re their driveway neighbors since we brought our house with us and hooked it up to their water and electric. And today, my friend, soul sister, and mastermind colleague, Marcy, had me over for a delicious homemade lunch. So good to see her!

If home is where the heart is, than my home spans continents. I chose this nomadic lifestyle, in part, because it means I can visit friends and family that I don’t get to see very often. It’s a real treat to be getting some in-person time with people I missed, and feeling right at home.

It’s part of what I’m calling ‘The Tara-tour-y’. Get it?

I’m on tour, and I’m my own agent. Our loose plan is to head south and then west.

Want to join the tour?

Want to meet for a bite, and maybe an interview? Want to host us in your driveway? Want to help me line up a book signing in your town? Or a workshop in your living room? Let me know! Let’s see what we can do to coordinate our paths crossing…

Here’s to the unfolding journey! 

xo

Tara Sage

Master Coach, Possibility Queen, Author, Speaker, Nomad, Salsera, Life Hack Pro, Location-independent business owner.

 

A Location Independent Nomadic Living Experiment Built on Wanderlust

In a recent blog post, entitled ‘Define “Home”, I wrote about what home really means to me. I shared that my nomadic heart spans across continents, making ‘home’ a concept that is simply too big and too complex for me to rightfully define it by just one place.

The truth is, I’ve always had a nomadic soul, and over the years I’ve been blessed to travel and wander my way to such places as Spain, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Dominican Republic, and parts of the continental United States and Canada. Wanderlust is innate to my being, and yet – as much as I want to fly the proverbial nest, I also really like having a nest to return to. Therein lies the challenge.

As a location independent business-owner since 2004, I have had a stake in some virtual real estate. Being a virtual landscape pioneer brings with it the unique opportunity to work remotely, from wherever I may be.

Cool, right?

Yet, here’s the catch: As freedom-oriented and expansive as this sounds, I’ve always felt it poses as much a dilemma as it does an opportunity. If I can live and work from anywhere, how the heck do I decide where my home base will be?

How do I pick a place? Where do I build my nest? And what nest will best provide me with the comforts of home, while also not imposing limits on how much flying I can do?

I trust you see the dilemma.

I lived in Rhode Island for many years. Then the DC area for two and a half years. But, I didn’t stay. Instead, my guy, Carl and I, along with our dog Cosmo, decided to hit the road for a Nomadic Experiment. We purchased a mobile nest — an RV camper, and an SUV to pull it. With our 20-foot “condo on wheels” in tow, we decided to heed the call of the open road … with no set timeline, no set itinerary, and no set destination.

One year later, having confirmed we really like the lifestyle, we upgraded to a 27′ Airstream, and we’re glad we did.

But I digress.

When we “launched” into nomadic living, here was our loose plan:

  • To be where we are and go where we want to go.
  • To work from the road, letting our journey inspire
    our work and our work inspire our journey.
  • To live out an expansive definition of home.
  • To wander.
  • To experience a mix of city and country.
  • To visit people we know and love along the way.
  • To make new friends and nurture new connections.
  • To deepen our relationship to one another.
  • To live simply, with less stuff and more freedom.
  • And, to find our way to sweaty salsa dancing hot spots along the way. (Carl and I met on a salsa dance floor.)

Along the way, we also speak, and teach, share, and inspire others to embark on Nomadic Living – be it for a month, a season, a year, or forever.

Will YOU be our next success story?

So glad you’re following our journey, and perhaps we’ll see you on the road! 🙂

xo

Tara Sage

Master Coach, Location-independent boss lady, Author, Speaker, Nomad, Salsera, Life Hack Pro