Plans can change in an instant. In steeling myself for over a year on the road, I know that I’m going to have to expect the unexpected on a daily basis. Last night, a storm and high winds brought a bit of clarity to our my upcoming trip. A bit of the unexpected.
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I’ve been talking regularly about my dreams of a RTW trip since early 2005. We went out to Chili’s for dinner and I told K that my gameplan was to have our travel nest egg saved up by March/April 2008 and that ideally I’d like to be on the road for eighteen months or longer. Since then, our discussions about it have been fleeting. I sensed that her head and her heart were not 100% in to the whole idea. But I understood that because I know leaving friends, family, and a steady job (two in her case) is not a decision to be taken lightly. I let it alone for quite a while with the hopes that she’d think about it and come to a decision with which she was confident.
Sixty mile-per-hour winds sent us into a blackout last night for about an hour. We laid on the couch in utter darkness with a few candles burning. I asked her what she thought about the trip idea. She said she could never leave her family and her cat for that long (for you non-cat people, trust me, this cat is like our kid). I told her that it’s certainly not without sacrifice. She never really gave me a decision, and I don’t know she ever will. Her last words on the subject were something to the effect, “I want to be excited for you.”
That was all the decision I needed. In my mind, extended travel is an all-or-nothing proposition. You either know you want it or you know you don’t. If you’re floating in the gray area in between, then you don’t want it. It takes a certain amount of mental stamina to be able to give up everything you know, to step outside of your comfort zone, into the land of what might be. That decision can’t be taken lightly and I wouldn’t expect her to.
At the moment, there is no end to this story. But in April 2008 I’ll be a year shy of 30. And I know this travel bug isn’t going away anytime soon. I’m dead-set on going; K is not. After over six years together, what do we do now?