The Path of Nicole

Hello and welcome to another chapter of this blog.

I have noticed that it’s been almost 4 years since I’ve posted here and while I’d like to say that I have been living a busy and interesting life since then, I think it’s better that I just stick to the truth.

The truth is that I have been living a busy life, but a lot of it has not been that interesting.

After a series of unfortunate events in the Spring of 2026, I decided to go on a bit of a digital nomad life adventure and move away from Houston, Texas for four months. This decision was part ‘on a whim’ and part ‘mid-life crisis’ and part ‘oh shit, one of your friends died and you will also die and you should probably go live life a little before death catches up to you.’

My apologies for a bit of a rocky and morbid start to this blog, but this is real life. And this real-life blog will contain some real-life shit.

Also, I will write this blog without the use of Artificial Intelligence (A.I.), so I hope that you will be able to feel and enjoy the humanness of all of this. Not using A.I. also means that things will likely be imperfect and you may read about death within the first 17 seconds of visiting a page.

I debated on what to write on this first blog entry, where I am chronicling my time away from Houston. I thought about writing something profound and moving. But I have settled on just a bit of a stream of consciousness style.

It took a lot of work and decisions to make this mini-adventure happen. This is not a sabbatical, since I am *definitely* still grinding along at my 9:00am-5:00pm job, but it is a bit of an experience sabbatical.

But getting here, where I am sitting right now, in a 2 bedroom, 1 bath, infinity bugs (outside, thankfully) AirBnB with 1 oversized cat and 1 small sized SUV sitting outside, took a lot of decisions!

Here are some of the decisions that I had to make in order to make this digital nomad situation work out:

1. What to do with my stuff? Answer: store it in a storage facility in Houston
2. How to pack my stuff? Answer: as tightly as humanly possible
3. What to do with my mail? Answer: MOM!
4. How to leave the home I’ve known for 21 years? Answer: with a full heart

And thus brings us to the real topic of this first blog post: FRIENDS

Over the past 21 years, I have very, very selectively collected / gathered/ encountered a lovely group of people that I am thankful to call friends.

Have you ever heard that (totally obnoxious) saying “No new friends”? Well, when you move from your hometown in your early 20s to the 4th largest city in America where you don’t know anyone, you better bet your sweet ass that you need to be open to making new friends.

Many of the closer friends that I’ve made over the years wished me lots of luck and love on my little journey and made time to tell me ‘love you, see you soon’ before I left.

I have to say that I was a little surprised by how much it seems I’ll be missed. I received a card that made me tear up when I received it and lots of hugs and lots of “I will miss you” sentiments and several free dinners.

Dang…who knew that I was so well loved? I suppose my friends knew.

Life is funny (and honestly kind of awful sometimes) because you just never know how you’ll find out things that you NEED to know…and I NEEDED to know how much my friends love me.

The love that I received from my friends lifted my spirits as I packed and cried and handed over my credit card for my $1,238 move from my old apartment to the storage room.

That love carried me up and down the elevator, packing my new car with my items and cat and toiletries.

But most importantly, I feel that the love will also carry me over the next four months when I am lonely. That love will also carry me back home, to Houston, when this little adventure is over.

For now, here are a few pics of those beautiful friends whom I love so much and who, surprise surprise…love me back.