Reflections, Camper Vans, and a New Year
Thoughts on confidence, fear, change, and being bad at packing
I’ve just returned from a two week long trek across Iceland and London, as I’m drinking a matcha and trying to not succumb to the beast that is jet lag. 2025 has proven to be off to a chaotic start already; there are a lot of upcoming changes in my life, and a lot of thoughts and feelings swirling around in this noggin. Both 2023 and 2024 were years of major life upheavals, and even bigger upheavals are in the works for this year. I’m looking forward to the day when I get to deal with the dust settling, but for now, I’m trying my hardest to not be scared of change and to look all my biggest fears right in the eye. Being brave isn’t about not being afraid - it’s about being afraid but doing the damn thing anyway. I have recently learned that I am, in fact, very brave.
When I set off on my holiday extravaganza, I had a suitcase packed for one week of really cold weather (cold in my opinion - 20°F - which I know is child’s play for y’all midwesterners. You’re colder than Iceland)! Spoiler alert - my trip was not one week long. Flying by the seat of my pants, I decided a few days into my trip to cancel my return flight home, and my trip ended up being about 16 days long - one week in Iceland, and a little over a week romping around my cozy / homey / babydoll of a city that is London. Needless to say, I was not packed and prepped for this, and frankly I spent the whole of those 16 days feeling terribly frumpy. This trip really solidified for me the idea that the way I’m dressed can greatly impact my overall sense of being and self-confidence, a thought I’ve written about previously, but is constantly evolving.
When it came to packing my suitcase, I was at an utter loss. I’ve never been in weather anywhere near that of Iceland, let alone spent an entire week in a van (yes, an entire week in a camper van, in blizzards and snowstorms, driving across the country. I’m starting 2025 being insane). I managed to get by thanks to Uniqlo’s heat tech thermals, a men’s XXL jacket Kai gave me like three years ago, and the inherent fiber properties in my wool sweaters. It was too cold to even try to look cute, I simply had to pile as much clothing onto my body as possible, and hope I could still feel my fingertips at the end of the day. I went skiing for the first time on this trip, and while I spent half the day falling on my ass into the snow, I was more downtrodden from my lack of a cute ski outfit. I genuinely think I would have been a better skier if I could at least look cute while falling on my butt fifty times. I don’t think I could live somewhere with such harsh weather - not even for the sake of being cold, but for the sake of not being able to rock a cute fit.
It’s really interesting to me to think of the locals living in these places that have unforgiving weather a big chunk of the year. It’s currently the first week of January, and I’m writing this sitting outside of a cafe in LA in shorts and a tee. I’ve always been in places where people use clothing as a form of self-expression in some way - where one has the freedom to choose what to wear, for the most part, without worrying about utilitarian properties. I’m always harping on about the idea that what you wear says something about you - that whether you like it or not, you are sending a message to the world about who you are. In a lot of ways, the last two weeks made me realize this may be a fairly myopic view in a lot of circumstances. I really hope none of the cool Icelandic folks thought my big, puffy, baggy skiing outfit said anything about my self-expression or fashion sense. These wintry looks were simply utilitarian, purely for comfort and for getting a job done (that job being exploring, looking at waterfalls, and desperately seeking vegetarian food options). This can be a really freeing feeling, one that was hugely uncomfortable for me at first, but I began to see the charm of eventually. I had no choice but to not care what I looked like. Two days into being stuck in a camper van with limited resources, no mirror, and a suitcase lacking anything remotely sexy, I remarked aloud that this was the longest I had gone without looking in a mirror or fretting over my appearance in literally as long as I could remember. I’ve never felt the freedom to not care, and when I settled into the fact that I didn’t really have the option to care, it felt fucking awesome.
Christmas in a van in Iceland, followed by New Years in a pub in London, were the end of 2024 and start of 2025 that I needed. I’m going into the new year trying to re-align the things that make me feel good about myself, focusing on my goals and growth like never before, and tackling my biggest fears head on (not Orca whales though. That fear is staying un-tackled). I’m finally feeling like a strong person, and I’m hugely grateful for all the amazing people I’ve been lucky enough to know in my life thus far. Despite all the fear, change, and uncertainty, I know I can handle anything 2025 throws my way.