It is official. I have ended a nearly two-decade employment and am beginning an entirely new reality. This reality feels a bit surreal for me. This time feels different. It feels permanent.
When we sold our house and quit our jobs and ran off to travel the world in 2007 we left so much behind; a storage unit full of a house worth of “stuff”, a truck, a car, a boat, a horse & goat. Obviously, we were coming back at one point if for no other reason than to deal with it all. It is now apparent that what happened is we came back into the middle of a terrible recession and moved nearly back into our old life. Not because we wanted to, but with limited job options and growing debt, because it was what seemed like the most reasonable option at the time.
This is different. We are divesting ourselves of nearly every single material possession. We are leaving only a couple of storage bins behind. And we are struggling, not with OUR choices, but with many of those around us. Many of the people who we feel should be the most excited and supportive are proving to be the most negative and challenging. While the denial is also strong, the open irritation and negativity is surprising and incredibly sad.
We realize the life we are seeking is outside of the norm considered acceptable by society. We realize we are, as Jimmy Buffet puts it “the people our parents warned us about”. We realize there are guarantees the life we seek will pay off long term.
But we also realize that nothing in life is guaranteed, literally not even life itself, except in this exact moment. We absolutely refuse to be “someday” people, those souls who continue to go through the mediocrity of their day to day life, always waiting for some grand event down the road that will release them from their tedium so they can REALLY start living. This has been our dream for a long time. This is OUR time and we refuse to apologize to the naysayers for following that dream.
Several of my co-workers that are close friends went out with us last week. We were heartened to read their cards filled with encouragement and love. We were thrilled to have so many of those around us encouraging us to leap off this cliff and follow our dreams, many jealous they didn’t have the courage (yet!) to do so themselves.
In the recent weeks our facebook pages have been blowing up with friends near and far excited beyond words for us, anxious to follow along on our journey and live vicariously through us. We have clung to their words, needing their love and support during what is proving to be a challenging time.
In two days Jim will be done with work. In five days we will be moving out of our rental. In ten days we will be HITTING THE ROAD to follow our dreams, fully exposing our hearts and souls to the world. Thank you, THANK YOU, to all of those in our life who have pulled for us, encouraged us, supported us wholeheartedly. We couldn’t do this without you and can’t wait to have you along for the ride!
