Everyone talks about the freedom part.

The open laptop on a beach cafe table. The one-way flights. The waking up in a new country and thinking “yeah, this is my actual life now.”

And don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. I genuinely love my life and I worked incredibly hard to build it. But there’s this part of the laptop lifestyle that nobody really talks about, and I’ve been sitting with it a lot lately.

It’s the part where having too many options starts to feel like having none at all.

I just got back from six months in Bali. Before that I was in Europe. My boyfriend lives in Southeast Asia. Part of me is already planning a European summer. Another part of me is wondering if I should go back to Asia first, or maybe actually settle somewhere for a while, or maybe (and this is the thought that keeps coming back) – figure out where home actually is for me.

And then I catch myself mid-thought and laugh a little, because what a wild problem to have.

The Part Nobody Tells You About “Work From Anywhere”

When you’re dreaming about the laptop lifestyle from a desk job you hate, the fantasy is pretty clear. Freedom. Flexibility. You and your laptop and the world as your office.

What the fantasy doesn’t include is the moment you’re sitting in a winter cottage in Scandinavia, genuinely unable to decide whether to book a flight back to Bali or stay for the European spring, and somehow both options feel equally right and equally wrong at the same time.

The freedom is real. But so is the weird disorientation that comes with it.

I have friends who think I’m living the dream… and I am, in so many ways. But I also sometimes feel like I’m floating. Like I exist between places rather than in any of them.

You’re not quite a local anywhere, not quite a tourist either. You’re just… in motion. And after a while, motion can start to feel a little bit like being lost, even when you know exactly where you are on the map.

I’m not homeless. I have my mom’s cozy cottage in Scandinavia to come back to. I have a place in Bali I love returning to. I have options, so many options. But sometimes having too many options is its own kind of paralysis, and I don’t think anyone tells you that before you build this life.

The Moment I Started Craving a Home Base

Something changed in me recently that I didn’t totally expect.

After years of wanting to be everywhere and go everywhere and never be tied to one place, I started feeling this pull toward something more grounded. Like a real home. Not a temporary flat or a rented Airbnb.

Somewhere actually mine, with my things in it. A regular cafe where they know my order.

I started looking at apartments in cities I love. Started thinking about what it would mean to actually commit to a place.

And then I remembered that I don’t even fully know what city that would be yet.

I love Bali for the winters like the warmth, the slowness, the iced coffee at 9am in a cafe that overlooks rice fields. I love Europe for the summers – the cobblestones, the markets, the feeling of being in a place with so much history that your own problems feel very small.

But my boyfriend is in Southeast Asia and part of me wants a base in Europe. And another part of me isn’t sure I’m ready to commit to any single place because what if I choose wrong?

This is the digital nomad paradox nobody puts in the Instagram caption…

You’re Allowed to Want Both Freedom AND Roots

I think for a long time I felt like wanting a home base meant I was somehow failing at the nomad lifestyle.

Like admitting I wanted to stay somewhere longer than a few months meant I wasn’t cut out for this, or that I’d outgrown it, or that the people who warned me it wasn’t sustainable were right.

But I’m starting to think that’s not it at all.

Wanting roots doesn’t mean you don’t want freedom. It just means you’re human.

And humans generally need some kind of anchor, even if that anchor is just a favorite neighborhood in a city you love, or a regular cafe where they know your order, or a person whose timezone you’d like to be in more often.

Freedom and stability aren’t opposites.

I think I’m still figuring out what the balance looks like for me specifically, but I’m less convinced than I used to be that choosing one means giving up the other.

Maybe home isn’t even a place. Maybe it’s more about what you build regardless of where you are – the routines that travel with you, the work that exists no matter which country you open your laptop in, the people you stay connected to even across different time zones.

My email diaries go out every Wednesday and Saturday no matter where I am in the world.

That consistency is its own kind of home, honestly.

What I’m Still Figuring Out

Right now I’m sitting in the winter cottage watching snow, thinking about flights, still not sure what comes next.

And honestly… I’m okay with that. I still wouldn’t trade this life for anything.

The floating feeling is just part of it. And I think the answer to the home question isn’t “where should I go” – it’s “what does home mean to me.”

I’m still figuring that out, and I’ll report back when I do. 😄

In the meantime, if you’re building toward this kind of life – the writing-based, no-reels, actually-sustainable version – Her Soft Blog Playbook is where I’d start. It’s what gave me all these options in the first place. Even the confusing ones.