In May, my friends and I went to the Elbrus region, where we lived in the mountains, and stopped in Pyatigorsk for three days. Immediately after this trip, the young man and I decided that we would return in October and stay in Pyatigorsk for a month to try to winter somewhere for the first time.
This solution had its own challenges. Despite the fact that I have been working remotely for a long time, I did not feel like a flexible schedule. It was difficult to accept that my task was just to write a certain number of texts per week, and how and where I would do it is my own business. It seemed to me that if I work, I still won’t be able to go anywhere – suddenly something happens, for example, the Internet stops working. It seemed that on weekdays I would be working and would only be able to get out somewhere on weekends, and that wasn’t worth the money spent on the trip.
However, I changed my attitude to work in the summer when my boyfriend and I went to Croatia. On vacation, I wrote a text in one day. I realized that I feel comfortable working this way – it doesn’t matter if I write articles from home or from somewhere else.
Now I decided not to take a vacation, but to continue working, but just in another city. As a result, on the first of October we flew away. For me, Pyatigorsk was a trial option to see if I could work from somewhere else for a long period.
Initially, I fantasized that there would be sunlit glades here, as it was in May and as the forecast in October promised. I imagined how after work I would go out for lunch on the lawn, eat fresh fruit from the market, look at the mountains and enjoy life. In fact, the whole first week in Pyatigorsk it was raining, and the temperature did not rise above 11 degrees. But even with the bad weather, I still felt different. In the new environment, I became more comfortable. Plus, the bad weather helped me to adapt: during the day, as before, I worked from home, just in a different location and with a different view from the window.
When it got warmer, we began to walk more. I learned how to plan my work so that even during the day I have time to walk around the city. For example, I can leave things that are not related to communication with other people for the night: I write and decipher texts around nine in the evening, and devote the extra couple of hours to myself during the day. At this time, I can even go to another city nearby. An interesting fact: a taxi between cities costs about 300 rubles here, when in Moscow I got to the next house for 500. Here prices are much lower – for a month in Moscow I would spend the same amount as in Pyatigorsk, even taking into account a rented apartment ( in Moscow I live in mine).
I like Pyatigorsk not only for its prices – it is green and picturesque. The infrastructure is also great: there are many restaurants serving delicious food, and at every turn there are huge markets with fresh fruits and berries. You can go for a walk in the mountains, and for this you do not need to make a long journey – you can walk to them from home in 20 minutes.
It seems to me that here I do not feel as anxious as in Moscow. At home, I constantly need to run somewhere and do something urgently. In Pyatigorsk, the atmosphere is calmer. It seems that I communicate with the same people, work at the same job, and it would seem that nothing changes, except for the external environment, but I feel completely different.
Naturally, I do not regret my journey at all, although I tend to FOMO. However, I experienced a more acute fear of missing something in Moscow, when I worked from home. Either I myself could not get to the events, or my free time did not coincide with the schedule of friends. I am not one of those people who know how to enjoy every day, notice small, beautiful details and discover something new in my city every day. I can’t do that, it is very important for me to change the situation in front of my eyes.
I would love to stay in Pyatigorsk and not return to Moscow until spring, but, unfortunately, I have things to do. Because of multiple sclerosis, I need to collect a package of documents for a free MRI once a year, on the basis of which the necessary medications are prescribed for me. So in the next few days I will be returning to Moscow.
Nevertheless, after this experience I stopped seeing the meaning of life in Moscow when working remotely. For me, social events are not worth being miserable five days a week for the opportunity to do something interesting on the weekend. Let me give you an example: two weeks ago, my friend and I went out into an endless meadow overlooking the mountains, lounged a little on the grass, went to the market for fruit and left for a spa with open-air thermal pools. It started raining, but that only made it cooler. How would I spend my weekend in Moscow? I would watch the series, go to a restaurant, I stopped going to parties a long time ago, so in the evening again the series. In general, it is definitely not so.