23 Mar 2011

The twenty-third of March.  This is a day that did not exist for us last year, lost in transit over the Pacific Ocean somewhere between Honolulu and Sydney.  It’s crazy to us that a year has gone by since we left Seattle behind.  Cliche, I know, but it went so quickly in so many ways, and really, so slowly in others.  Some things changed dramatically – the configuration of the night sky, our spending power, our knowledge around what it really takes and means to move and live abroad – while others stayed the same – still living out of duffle bags, still loving the opportunity to travel freely, still marveling over how many times Gina can say the word “organize” on any given day.

Of course, it hasn’t all worked out the way we thought it might.  That is evident by the fact that the belongings we shipped down here that short year ago are sitting in that Sydney warehouse right now, waiting to be loaded onto another mighty cargo ship that will steam them back from whence they came.  Was it worth it?  Sometimes that answer depends on the moment when that question is asked and always on the attitude – our attitudes – with which it is received.  Sure, there are moments when we say, sheesh, if we’d known then what we know now, that Sydney really wasn’t the right city for us, then we’d say “yeah, it was worth it”, but that response would then be followed with a string of BUTs and NEVERs: but I never would have shipped those things, I never would have sold that sofa, I never would have done this, I never would have done that.  And yet those are all hindsight statements, things that we didn’t anticipate, things that we couldn’t have known until we were in it, doing it, living it, experiencing it, feeling our way around such a big move to such a big city to such a big life change at an age when most folks aren’t making such changes (not by choice, anyway), busy raising their children and earning their paychecks and paying their mortgages and inviting the neighbors over for dinner and just generally enjoying the lives they’ve built in the places they call home.

Not everyone picks up their lives when they are pushing that half-way-through-them point and deposits them 8000 miles away.  When we remember that, when we examine what we’ve accomplished here, when we focus on how much we’ve learned about ourselves, where we’ve been and where we’re going now, how we’ve managed to make a big decision that didn’t work out quite the way we thought it would STILL work, then we answer that question the same way, the same “yeah, it was worth it”, but we stop there.  Because really, it was worth it.  Every roll of packing tape, every craigslist ad, every spreadsheet of inventory, every doubt, every hope, every attempt to try something new and different and big and bold and maybe sometimes just a little bit naive.  It was all worth it because not only did we learn new things and meet new people and experience a new country and a new culture along the way, but look where it also took us, into a life – however temporary – without cubicle walls, without conference calls, without Monday morning alarm clocks ringing.  Just us, our guide books, a few plane tickets, and a chance to see a part of the world we previously knew little about.  We may return to Seattle homeless, jobless, and penniless, but ask me again if it was worth it and I’ll say, yeah, it was.  And give me my twenty-third of March back, please – I could use it to see a bit more.