Hi, I'm Nina Iordanova and this is the 10th edition of Something Good, a newsletter filtered through my 🧠, 🖐, and ❤️. Coming your way every two weeks, I hope you find something good here.
Hi!
By the time you read this, I’ll probably be on my way to the airport, or possibly in New York.
I’ve never been a good solo traveler. I tried it twice in my 20’s. The first time, it was because I didn’t think I was the kind of person who liked traveling alone, but I wanted to double check that. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t living my life according to a memory or an assumption of who I was. Maybe I’d love exploring new places by myself, who knows!
My family and went to Bulgaria every year to see family, so I figured I’d use that opportunity to spend another 3 weeks exploring Europe. After all, I was already there! Just me and my backpack and a robust spreadsheet to plan the cheapest flights around the country.
I’d graduated from university just a year ago, and I remembered having severe panic attacks for the first month of my undergrad. It wasn’t something I’d ever experienced before, and if you’d asked me, I would have said I was excited about the new school and the new people. But I couldn’t stop trembling and I could barely breathe or think and a lot of days, I’d just sit on the subway for two hours before turning around and coming home. Home was the only place I felt okay.
Even though those panic attacks stopped after the first month, I was worried they’d come back when I least expected it.
I was worried that I’d be in some far-off country where I didn’t speak the language, didn’t know where I was, didn’t know how to get around, didn’t have a home to come back to - and it would hit. And what would I do? It was debilitating and the idea of it happening again was terrifying to me.
So I planned absolutely every day of my trip in advance. I booked every single flight and every single hostel that I’d be staying in for those 3 weeks, because I wanted to know that there would always be somewhere to go. I had paper copies and electronic copies of everything (paper in case my phone died, electronic in case I lost the paper), planned every single bus and train route from the airport to the hostel, and set aside an emergency taxi fund in case I got overwhelmed and just needed an emergency exit from wherever I was.
So with all that preparation, I travelled from Prague to Amsterdam, Barcelona, Lisbon, and Lyon, spending 4-5 days in each city.
And I DID NOT LIKE.
While I saw a lot of beautiful things, I hated the discomfort of moving so quickly. Of having to learn new money, new transit systems, new hostels, new people, new ways of getting around. The stress of adjusting to a completely new environment every few days made me feel stressed and on guard, and it made it hard to enjoy wherever I was in the moment.
(I also have a weird thing where I don’t like getting food by myself from unfamiliar restaurants, so eating when I’m away from home is a freakishly big challenge. Cafes are okay, restaurants are a no-go. So if I’m alone, I usually end up eating a lot of croissants and sandwiches, or finding one place that I’ll go to for every single meal. In Prague, that was a crêpe truck that had different fillings, so I’d just switch them up depending on what time of day it was).
By the end of those 3 weeks, it felt like I was dragging myself from airport to hostel to airport to hostel, just waiting to wrap up my trip so I could finally go home to a place I knew. So I could eat like a normal person and go back to routines that were comfortable and familiar.
I ended up repeating the 3 week solo trip the next year as a scientifically controlled experiment to make sure it wasn’t just the newness of travelling alone that had stressed me out. Still DID NOT LIKE, although I did have a lot of fun when a friend living in London came to join me in Berlin and Budapest for a weekend. I have not willingly traveled alone since.
All that to say, as excited as I am about going to New York, I’m nervous too.
This caught my eye
📈 Stock market for beginners. I’ve been frustrated by my complete ignorance about the stock market and investing and have been spending the last few months changing that. This was a great guide to learn the fundamentals. 3 hours long but thorough and easy to follow.
🤡 Welcome to the internet by Bo Burnham. His new special “INSIDE” is a strong piece of performance art, both for what he’s made and how he’s made it. This was one of my favourite pieces from it.
🛋 The rise of armchair therapy. The frameworks and language of therapy have started to leave the therapist’s room and become a part of our day-to-day conversations. What have we gained from that, and what nuance and context have been lost?
Things my mother taught me
Growing up, I never washed my face. Not with face wash, not with soap, not even with water. I’d just wake up and get my day started. I remember it was a revelation to realize that it was something people did EVERY SINGLE DAY, as regularly as brushing your teeth.
My mom keeps telling me it’s counter-productive, and that soap strips oils and healthy bacteria from your skin. I’m guessing this is true to different degrees for different people living in different places, but to this day I still don’t wash my face with anything.
I’ve been experimenting with splashing my face with cold water when I wake up and before I go to bed, but that’s mostly for the shock factor. It’s interesting what different cultures take as a given!
Closing thoughts
Field Guide
By Tony Hoagland
Once, in the cool blue middle of a lake,
up to my neck in that most precious element of all,
I found a pale-gray, curled-upwards pigeon feather
floating on the tension of the water
at the very instant when a dragonfly,
like a blue-green iridescent bobby pin,
hovered over it, then lit, and rested.
That’s all.
I mention this in the same way
that I fold the corner of a page
in certain library books,
so that the next reader will know
where to look for the good parts.
(Found in Sara Campbell’s Tiny Revolutions newsletter)
✨
Warmly yours,
Nina
If you’re wondering who’s behind this newsletter:
My name is Nina Iordanova. I’m a writer, community builder, and founder of Good People. My mission is to create more ways to make us feel like we belong - to ourselves, to each other, and to the world around us.
Want more?
Follow me on Medium and Twitter.
If you're enjoying this newsletter, I'd love it if you shared it with a friend!
Was Something Good forwarded to you? You can subscribe here.
Thanks for reading and I'll see you in two weeks! 👋