6 months from now will be another Sunday. I’ll wake up in my old childhood bedroom at my parent’s house. I’ll go into the family room and lay down on the love seat, but Tucker won’t join me to cuddle like we usually do on the weekends. He’ll have gotten up earlier, with my dad, and will be more interested in looking out the sliding glass doors to the backyard. My dad will be watching the Sunday morning news and reading the paper. As soon as I come into the family room, he’ll ask me if I want an omelette. The answer, as always, will be yes.
Eventually Jon will wake up and join us in the family room. He may or may not have an omelette for breakfast, but will help himself to a big mug of coffee. My mom will be around as well, maybe getting ready to go to church or for a walk at the State Park. It won’t feel much different than any other time we have gone to visit and stay at my parent’s house, but yet this time will be so much different.
In 6 months, we’ll both be unemployed. We’ll have sold or donated most of our belongings, keeping only those sentimental items or irreplaceable things. We might spend the afternoon of that Sunday in 6 months in the basement, organizing the boxes and packing up those items to store. We’ll have moved, albeit temporarily, into my parent’s house with our cat, Tucker. Over the next month, we’ll spend time preparing for our trip, getting Tucker acclimated to living there, and spending time with our families.
We’ve been dreaming of, saving for, and slowly planning this trip for the past 5 years. This idea, this dream, started before we even got married. It’s been a part of our lives, influencing our decisions, for so long now. I’m very comfortable with the idea of someday leaving for this big trip, someday leaving our jobs and apartment, someday saying goodbye to friends and family. Now that we are officially only 6 months away from taking that first big step, “someday” has turned into “this summer.” That’s a really scary thought.
Almost everyone who we have told about our trip has been very supportive, always asking us, “Aren’t you so excited?!” The answer that we give is usually a big “Yes!” Why wouldn’t we be excited? This has been our dream for so long now, of course we are excited. However, mixed in with that excitement are a myriad of other emotions. I am also nervous, scared, doubtful, conflicted, and anxious. All of these emotions are inside me, but kept internal, shown only in small bits to Jon. The excitement is what everyone expects to see and is what I show to people when discussing the trip. The other emotions are just as real, and will probably creep out a bit more as our date gets closer.
6 months is not a lot of time. It will go by quickly, and before I know it, we’ll be packing the last of our boxes here in Pontiac, saying goodbye to our jobs and friends here in the city. It will be time for us to take that next big steps in our lives. Not buying a house or having a baby, as most people our age would do. But to leave our comfortable lives in search of something more. The ability to meet new people and learn their story, try new and exotic foods, visit new places most only read about in a magazine, open our minds to new cultures and ways of living. Those are the things I’m excited about, but also a little bit nervous, scared, doubtful, conflicted, and anxious.
I’m not really one for quotes, but there’s one that I tore out of a magazine years and years ago, and has been displayed on our fridge in every apartment or house we have lived in.
Life is,
above all things,
a great adventure –
It is an endless journey
of faith and hope,
on a path
sometimes obscured
by shadowy uncertainties.
It is an odyssey
often fraught with peril:
mountains steep and stark
to climb,
rivers deep and dark
to cross –
chances to stumble,
to fall, to fail.
But the voyage
is also marked
with glory and grandeur:
with miracles of beauty,
and tender joys,
and steadfast stars
to light the way home.
Life is,
above all things,
a great adventure.
Ok, so maybe that’s more of a short poem that a quote. But it’s something that has spoken to me for years, reminding me that there will be ups and downs, mountains to climb and grandeur to behold. This trip, for us, will be a grand adventure.