Holy Sh*t
/Today is our last day of work for months. It's totally crazy. It feels like the last day of school before summer vacation, except more exciting and also terrifying because we don't have the comfort of knowing that we'll be returning to a familiar way of life after our trip. This is it. Today is the last day of our ordinary lives (and our last paycheck.....). Tomorrow we start organizing our lives so that we can get lost in the tangles of travel. We start packing up our apartment, we have to keep tighter track of our spending and saving, we start soaking up the last few visits with our family and friends, and then we go!
When we tell friends and coworkers about our upcoming travels, it's easy to think our lives are always this exciting. Two kids up and dumping their jobs, heading out into an unknown foreign land, with no sight of the simple life in the near future- that's pretty awesome and we seem pretty damn cool (toot my horn). But what people don't realize is the very boring, very ordinary lives we've lead up until now.
Up until this point, my life has been on a path that I've more or less been blindly and mindlessly following. Sure, I got to choose my college and my major; I decided which jobs to apply for and which opportunity to pursue. But each day has been planned out for me, whether it was school for 22 years or my marketing career for the past year. Monday through Friday turned into a repetitive whirlwind where each day molded into the next, and only the weekends had a unique event to breakup the otherwise indistinguishable days.
If you know me, or even just read my bio, you know I'm everrr so slightly anal retentive (you probably know that's an understatement... And that it's genetic). I enjoy being organized to a T, knowing when and where things are going to happen, and asking the annoying questions that everyone hates to be bothered with, "So when should we expect you?" "Have you heard back from your boss if you're getting this weekend off? I'm just trying to get a head count so I can meticulously plan my grocery list 4 days in advance." It should be no surprise that my predetermined days for the past 23 years haven't been met with much resistance- although boredom has certainly come into play- because I enjoy a schedule.
But now that Mike and I are pulling the trigger in the dark and setting out on this amazing journey, I'm faced with a whole new version of myself that I haven't met yet: Easy Breezy Emily. Each day will be met with an open mind, an undetermined plan, and an unknown destination. I won't be able to get anxious about the answers I don't know because it will be completely out of my hands. My heart says 'yes' but my planner says 'NO'. Unattached, disheveled, lost, unorganized, carefree- not words I've ever used to describe myself, but in a couple weeks will be the epitome of my life in the best way possible.
Today we celebrate our frugality. We give ourselves a pat on the back for sticking to our goal and aiming big- and getting there! Today is the true start of something incredible. And in two short weeks our far-fetched dream of travel becomes a reality.
Holy shit.
