As I start to type these words awkwardly with my thumbs on my tablet, I find myself on a 747 somewhere over the middle of the Pacific. The noise of the engines is unusually loud and my stomach is growling because the only choices for lunch were chicken or beef. I am homeless and all my necessities are crammed into two backpacks. I'm feeling emotional from leaving my friends, family, and city behind. My eyes, red from tears, are hidden behind a pair of sunglasses.
And this was all my choosing. An explanation is probably in order here so let's rewind a bit.
A bit after I started my sabbatical earlier this year, I started looking into an extended trip to Southeast Asia, specifically Bali. I had come across a blog written by an American expat who lived in Southeast Asia for pennies on the dollar (compared to the United States). He worked remotely and enjoyed a cheap, tropical lifestyle. I was intrigued. A couple months later, my friend Sabina went to Bali for a couple weeks for a yoga retreat and fell in love with it. I took particular notice to the fact that she was happier and more affectionate after she returned and this encouraged me further to start planning something big.
After her return home, Sabina decided it was time to close the chapter on her job and look for something new. One evening over drinks, I picked her brain about Bali and we joked that instead of her getting a new job, we should take a trip to Southeast Asia together. Little did I realize at the time that that conversation was only a half-joke.
The next time we saw each other, the conversation was less of a joke, and the time after that it was even less. At some indeterminate moment, the scales tipped and suddenly we were talking about flights, timelines, subleases, travel insurance, and storage units. As the to-do lists started mounting and I started confiding in family and friends about our plans, it finally hit me that this trip was actually materializing.
For a few separate and unrelated reasons, we set next March/April as the absolute end of the trip. Given the lengthy duration, the geographic scope of the trip grew to include all of Southeast Asia, not just Bali. Singapore, Thailand, and Bali are definitely happening and Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and Burma are all fair game. The trip will be very flexible and open-ended and we'll plan just as far ahead as we need to.
I had already been thinking of getting a new apartment anyway, so I started the process of putting my things in storage, which wasn't my first choice, but I didn't want the hassle of keeping an apartment I no longer wanted. Sabina has a gorgeous Nob Hill apartment that she pays way under market value for, so finding a subtenant was a no-brainer, which she did with relative ease. The last few weeks have been filled with travel shopping, selling and donating things (which inevitably leads to Craigslist assholery), vaccines, guide book research, bucket listing, and tearful goodbyes.
This leads me back to today, the conclusion of the "farewell tour", as I've been referring to the last month of concerts, barhopping, dinners, dancing, getaway weekends, and general merriment. Everything is simultaneously thrilling and terrifying and I'm really not sure what to expect in the coming months. Our destinations, our timeline, our activities, and even our personal dynamic are all question marks at this point. Really anything can happen.
So that's the story. One of my favorite songs ever will pretty much serve as the soundtrack for the next however-many-number of months.
Life's waiting to begin.
And this was all my choosing. An explanation is probably in order here so let's rewind a bit.
A bit after I started my sabbatical earlier this year, I started looking into an extended trip to Southeast Asia, specifically Bali. I had come across a blog written by an American expat who lived in Southeast Asia for pennies on the dollar (compared to the United States). He worked remotely and enjoyed a cheap, tropical lifestyle. I was intrigued. A couple months later, my friend Sabina went to Bali for a couple weeks for a yoga retreat and fell in love with it. I took particular notice to the fact that she was happier and more affectionate after she returned and this encouraged me further to start planning something big.
After her return home, Sabina decided it was time to close the chapter on her job and look for something new. One evening over drinks, I picked her brain about Bali and we joked that instead of her getting a new job, we should take a trip to Southeast Asia together. Little did I realize at the time that that conversation was only a half-joke.
The next time we saw each other, the conversation was less of a joke, and the time after that it was even less. At some indeterminate moment, the scales tipped and suddenly we were talking about flights, timelines, subleases, travel insurance, and storage units. As the to-do lists started mounting and I started confiding in family and friends about our plans, it finally hit me that this trip was actually materializing.
For a few separate and unrelated reasons, we set next March/April as the absolute end of the trip. Given the lengthy duration, the geographic scope of the trip grew to include all of Southeast Asia, not just Bali. Singapore, Thailand, and Bali are definitely happening and Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and Burma are all fair game. The trip will be very flexible and open-ended and we'll plan just as far ahead as we need to.
I had already been thinking of getting a new apartment anyway, so I started the process of putting my things in storage, which wasn't my first choice, but I didn't want the hassle of keeping an apartment I no longer wanted. Sabina has a gorgeous Nob Hill apartment that she pays way under market value for, so finding a subtenant was a no-brainer, which she did with relative ease. The last few weeks have been filled with travel shopping, selling and donating things (which inevitably leads to Craigslist assholery), vaccines, guide book research, bucket listing, and tearful goodbyes.
This leads me back to today, the conclusion of the "farewell tour", as I've been referring to the last month of concerts, barhopping, dinners, dancing, getaway weekends, and general merriment. Everything is simultaneously thrilling and terrifying and I'm really not sure what to expect in the coming months. Our destinations, our timeline, our activities, and even our personal dynamic are all question marks at this point. Really anything can happen.
So that's the story. One of my favorite songs ever will pretty much serve as the soundtrack for the next however-many-number of months.
Life's waiting to begin.
