Alessandra is reading…

📁The Yellow Envelope by Kim Dinan🌏

Kim feels that there’s more to life than sitting at a desk and wants to explore the world to see what more there is. She and her husband quit their jobs and sell the majority of their possessions (including their house) to travel for as long as they wish.

Before leaving, Kim’s dear friends give them quite a unique and exceptional gift – a yellow envelope with only 3 rules on how to give the money away while they’re abroad.

**Spoilers in Review below**

I was very confused about Kim’s thinking throughout. She wants time apart from Brian so she can find out who she is alone, who she can become. But at the end of chapter 11 she says she’s “already everything I need to be.” And she says she needs to be alone to figure out who she is but then invites Wendy along.

I like Kim. I love her choice to travel the world full time to learn about it. I love her kindness and the endless room for compassion she seems to have. But she’s also kind of aggravating – reminds me of myself by bringing her anxiety everywhere with her. I guess I’m kind of speaking to myself) – can’t you just enjoy the things you wanted to do? She uprooted her entire life, made her husband uproot his life along with her to travel, and now she’s waffling between whether or not she wants/needs him around while she “finds” herself.

This is something I’ve learned going through life, that no matter what you do or where you go, that anxiety that you’re holding onto is still there if you don’t take care of that. I feel like if they uprooted their lives after Kim dealt with this internal conflict, they wouldn’t have gotten separated. BUT ALSO, if they hadn’t gone through what they had, then Kim and Brian maybe wouldn’t have had the experiences that they did when they separated, stayed together in the long run, and had their child. And also, not my experience and not my life, so just take this as the musings that I had while reading this. I’ve seen on bookstagram that other people don’t like rating memoirs because it’s someone else’s life story and how do they rate someone else’s life story…I understand that. And if I wrote a memoir, maybe I’d be upset about someone commenting negatively on it or criticizing me. But I see it as this person made the decision to put this part of their life out there, and they have a right to share that info, so I can also have the right to comment on it. Maybe this means that I’m unkind or unfair, but I think it’s fine to critically discuss a memoir.

Overall, I’m glad Kim got to travel as she had wanted and found herself out there. I appreciate her sharing her experience with me and all the others who have read The Yellow Envelope. I’m also glad that her book made me think so much – exactly what I wanted by taking a travel memoir camping last month.

Read on and go on those adventures you crave.