Life never stops surprising me.
As I’m sitting in the library in Silves writing this, I feel a quiet sense of relief. This morning I managed to get my car fixed, which means I’m mobile again.
It was an unexpected expense I definitely didn’t plan for.
But somehow I trust that life will provide again.
Which might make some people wonder:
How did I end up reducing my life to two square metres and my little green Honda SUV?
Listening to the Inner Compass
My mind is not guiding me right now.
Something deeper is.
An inner compass that keeps telling me the same thing:
If something new wants to be born, I first need the courage to let go of the old.
To some people, what I’m doing might sound completely crazy. But internally it feels deeply right.
I simply felt that I had outgrown the old way of living. Organising my life around keeping an apartment and searching for another full-time job no longer made sense to me.
I haven’t spent the last months doing so much inner work only to return to survival mode.
When the Mind Tries to Hold On
Of course, my mind had many suggestions.
It told me to hold onto the apartment.
Rent out a room.
Promote my work harder.
Look for alternatives.
And I tried.
I looked at job offers. I even applied for a few. But every time I imagined going back to a 9-to-5 job, six days a week or more, something inside me resisted deeply.
It felt like selling my soul just to survive.
At some point I realised something important:
I was organising my life around the apartment, instead of organising my life around what truly matters to me.
And what matters to me is living with integrity.
The last two years have already asked me to make many courageous decisions.
In August 2024 I left my job.
In spring 2025 I left a relationship that no longer felt aligned.
And now another chapter was closing: my apartment and the identity I had carried for years — the rescuer, the one always available to guide others, often at the expense of my own energy.
Creating Space for Something New
When I started packing my things, I asked myself a simple question:
What kind of life would actually nourish me?
The answers were clear.
I need nature.
I want to save money on rent.
I love animals.
And I would enjoy spending time in different places to feel where life wants to take me next.
Somewhere in the middle of packing boxes, a new idea appeared: house sitting.
Caring for animals while staying in different places sounded like a beautiful possibility.
And I also made another decision:
If the alternative was to stay in environments that drained my energy, I would rather go camping.
Peace and nature suddenly felt far more valuable than comfort without alignment.
The Leap
On 23 February I made the decision to let go of the apartment.
At that moment my bank balance was around 60 euros, and the rent was due the next day.
For over a year I had been worrying about how to keep paying rent while maintaining my freedom. I tried many different things, but nothing truly worked.
Eventually I reached a point where there was nothing left to hold onto.
So I let go.
To make the transition possible, I sold a pair of golden rings that once belonged to my grandmother. That gave me just enough to pay for a small storage space and the fuel needed to move my things.
During those five intense days I also sold a few personal items, which bought me a little breathing space for the following few weeks.
It was far from a comfortable plan.
But it was honest.
Within five days I found a small storage space, packed my belongings, cleaned the apartment and gave away many things. I realised how much we accumulate over the years.
Releasing so much of it felt surprisingly good.
After more than nine years living in Faro, it truly felt like closing a chapter.
On Saturday, 28 February, I returned the keys.
Only when I drove away did the sadness arrive. I felt it most when thinking about Mr Café, the outdoor cat who lived on my terrace. I loved to watch him. He was fun company, even though he never allowed me to touch him.
But then I smiled and reminded myself: he’s a cat, he’ll be fine.
The First Yeses
My only plan was to treat this moment as both an ending and a beginning.
I didn’t know exactly what form the next chapter would take. But internally I had a sense of the kind of life I wanted.
The first aligned “yes” appeared quickly.
My very first stop was Portimão after accepting an invitation for dinner with a retired couple who were considering me for a house-sitting opportunity. They lived in a beautiful home with four rescued cats.
I went without expectations, simply to feel the energy.
Two days later they confirmed:
my first house-sit was secured for mid-May.
Around the same time a few other house-sitting possibilities also began to appear, small conversations and messages that hinted that this path might actually work.
And then another beautiful sign arrived.
After a break of almost four months, I taught my first surf lesson again last Saturday. Standing in the ocean with a surfboard and sharing that experience with someone reminded me of something very simple:
This is still part of my path.
It felt like life gently whispering: you are supported.
After night in Portimao I followed another impulse and drove to the West Coast, a place I hadn’t visited for a long time.
I pitched my tent, hung my hammock, and laughed when I realised it was the night of the full moon.
Lying in the hammock under the moon and the stars, I felt something I hadn’t felt in a long time:
relief.
Seeing People More Clearly
The last months weren’t only about decluttering physical belongings.
They were also about taking inventory of my life, including the people in it.
I began to see more clearly that some relationships I believed were friendships were actually something else.
People who were around not for who I truly am, but for what they could receive from me.
It was a difficult realisation, but also a liberating one.
I had to be radically honest and close the leaking pipes where my energy was constantly flowing out.
For a long time, I had been drained while others were comfortable.
Now I’m learning to choose differently.
Some people became quiet.
Some became angry.
Some felt abandoned.
But each reaction revealed something.
And I am grateful for that clarity.
Trust Gets Tested
Of course, life doesn’t take long to test new decisions.
A few days ago my car started having problems.
It struggled to start, and the clutch suddenly became very soft, making it difficult to change gears.
My mind immediately began spinning worst-case scenarios.
But I’ve learned to recognise that game.
So instead of feeding the panic, I focused on simple things:
eat a proper meal, rest, go for a walk.
The problem appeared during the weekend, so there was little I could do immediately anyway.
I had just arrived at a small farm near Silves where I could camp, and the town was within walking distance for groceries.
In the middle of this uncertainty I also had to cancel a paid house-sitting opportunity that was supposed to start this Thursday in Odemira. Without knowing whether my car would be reliable, committing to it simply didn’t feel responsible.
Of course, part of me was disappointed. But I’ve learned that sometimes when something falls away, it simply means it wasn’t meant to unfold that way.
Eventually I found a mechanic, and this morning the problem was solved.
The price, however, was not small.
425 euros.
Ouch.
That was not exactly part of the plan.
But interestingly, I didn’t panic.
Maybe because this whole journey already began without a perfect plan. I trusted life then, and I trust it now.
The mechanic agreed that I could pay half now and the rest next month.
And somehow I know things will keep unfolding.
Learning to Receive
I’ve already started exploring new possibilities like helping on farms in exchange for discounted or free camping, maybe another house-sitting opportunity, maybe a surf class booking appearing out of nowhere.
I don’t need to have everything planned.
I’m learning to take life one moment at a time and leave space for life itself to organise things.
Sometimes the smallest moments remind me of this.
A couple of evenings ago I walked into a small local bar owned by a Czech woman. I felt like having a small Czech beer while watching the sunset.
When I went to pay, she smiled and said:
“It’s on me.”
My first instinct was to post about her place online and tag it as a thank-you.
But then I paused.
Instead, I simply received the gift.
And maybe that is also part of what this journey is teaching me.
The Strange Peace of Not Knowing
“I don’t know” has become my new mantra.
But it’s not a desperate kind of not knowing.
It comes from trust.
I would rather choose uncertainty with integrity than stability that costs me my truth.
There is something strangely peaceful about not knowing exactly what comes next… and allowing life to unfold one step at a time.
For now, my home is a small green Honda, a tent, and the open road.
And somehow, that feels just right.