Our trip around the world is fast approaching. While I feel very excited about everything now, I was pretty stressed out about it a couple of days ago. One moment I was baking in the kitchen, taking care of my plants, and cuddling with the kitties, and the next moment, our house was rented, we were moving, and we had purchased our one-way tickets to Glasgow. It was really happening! We were really doing it!
Suddenly, all of my romantic notions of traveling around the world were brought into a harsh focus, and it hit me just how much of a material and emotional upheaval this really is. Almost overnight, life was vastly different. It was quickly becoming apparent how much we had to get done before our trip in April. The older I get, the faster time seems to fly by. Before we knew what hit us, we would be gone.
I felt sad, and homesick already, and missing my family. I felt like I was being uprooted and all I wanted to do was settle down. One moment I was making our house into a cozy and beautiful home, and the next moment we were leaving it. Also, for probably the first time during this whole process, Tyler felt the same sense of being uprooted, just wanting to stay and settle more.
While I am sure that all of those feelings will probably return at some point during our trip, right now I am really excited about how everything is going. We are moving out, selling what we can, and moving in with Tyler's mom, Jodi, to save money for our trip. Tyler and I spent the day going through our books and making piles of things to get rid of, keep, or give away as gifts to people we love.
The house is becoming more and more bare as we sell things on Craigslist, and it actually feels really good to pare down our possessions. Not only is it really fun when someone buys your stuff and hands you a big wad of cash for it, but its also nice living with fewer and fewer things. It seems a bit like going back to living in a much simpler time. Don't get me wrong, I do love my stuff, and I'm keeping all of my important things, like photo albums and journals, art I've made, and my favorite books and precious possessions. The things I love. But it feels really good to get rid of the stuff that doesn't matter so much.
Nowadays, there are fewer distractions and I find it easier to focus. Our emptier rooms feel different and are somehow exciting—it reminds me of the feeling I had when I was little and my family was moving into a new house—it was bare and we slept in sleeping-bags on the floor, and everything was a great adventure! And now Tyler and I are going on an incredible adventure, and while we have been planning this for months, now it truly feels REAL!
I feel really good about the trip, and I am looking forward to moving in with Jodi. We brought our boxes of books over to her house today to store in the basement, and it was just beautiful driving out of town, past fields and farms, and up the winding, tree-lined driveway to her house. I loved the fall colors and the leaves drifting to the ground as we drove up. I'm really looking forward to going for walks and bike rides in the countryside.
It will be nice, too, to wake up in a bright, sunny room with a huge window overlooking the woods. Our room sort of feels like a hotel room, with a perfectly made bed, plush white carpet, and adjoining bathroom. It will be a new experience, for sure, moving out of our house and moving in with Jodi, but I'm really excited about it, and I know that it will be wonderful. And… drumroll please…. this truly is our very first destination on our around-the-world tour!!
Well, I have a beautiful kitty (Ki) curled up next to me as I'm writing this on the laptop in bed, and I can hear Tyler typing away at his journal entry on on his computer. It is a cozy, rainy, thundery evening, and I am going to cherish every little bit of it. I'll write more in the next few days as we continue moving and selling and getting rid of stuff and making preparations for our bike trip—but right now, I have a kitty to cuddle with. Ki just sighed in her sleep, rolled over, and put one of her precious little paws over her eyes. I am going to miss them so much!