Adventure Awaits!

I understand that look I get from friends and family when I whisper to them our still semi-secret plan.  I can practically hear the reasoning being shouted back at me from their eyes.  MID-LIFE CRISIS.  Yes, that is probably true.  Is it a bit unexpected and out of character?  Alright, I will own that.  Regardless, we are committed to taking this leap.

How did we get here?  I started as a child fantasizing about travel and visiting places I had only read about in books.  Kevin and I have been counting down the years until retirement so we could do this.  I have kept working at the same organization for almost 20 years mainly because the pay and vacation time allowed me to scratch the travel itch throughout the year.  My paycheck was allocated to the things that mattered to us most: education, retirement savings (that I can’t touch for 20 more years!), and my beloved travel.  By the start of 2017, I already had 3 major vacations and 2 mini vacations planned out for the year.  I am the type of girl that enjoys the planning phase as much as the actual vacation.

My husband and I were married 15 years ago in February.  The Hawaiian Priestess that performed the ceremony provided us with a traditional Sacred Wedding Bundle made from kapa bark and introduced a tradition for us to revisit every year.  On our anniversary date we choose a token that represents something we want to work on together that year and add it to the bundle.  Previous years tokens include things like tiny keys to represent the desire for home ownership or a clear crystal to represent healing and a healthier lifestyle.  This year we added a tiny compass charm and decided 2017 would be the year of adventure.  We had no idea at the time how far those thoughts and aspirations would take us.

So here we are, re-imagining our version of “The American Dream”.  We are ready to sell the house we wanted 13 years ago, get rid of all the belongings we have accumulated over that time, quit our stable jobs and current lifestyle all for the sake of this dream.  We don’t want to wait another 20 years.  We both have family and friends that never got that chance.

So, mid-life crisis?  Yes.  But I am glad to be fortunate enough to experience it and heed the underlying warning.  Life is too short to not experience the things that make us truly happy as often as possible.  As beautifully sung by one of my favorite fellow bookworms, Princess Belle, “I want adventure in the great wide somewhere!  I want it more than I can tell.”

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