The year 2012 was a an emotional one. Four of our friends died, all of them were too young to go. All of them had many things left to live for, two left young kids without mothers to raise them. Deb and I arrived in Emergency on the same day I was diagnosed with a brain tumour, she with liver cancer. Mine was non cancerous, small and in a easily accessible part of the brain. I realized from the first moment in the hospital how lucky I was, where Deb was fighting for her life. The second time this fit young woman in her early 30s had been struck with cancer the first time at 19. Life is not fair or just or predictable. Life is so mysterious as to be terrifying. It feels like a game of Russian Roulette and I had dodged the bullet and Deb’s gun was fully loaded. The gun did not discriminate. She had young children, she had a life worth living, she took care of herself, she really wanted to live.
So although I felt extreme gratitude for my escape from the loaded gun there was great sorrow for Deb who wasn’t so lucky. The vision of our random temporary condition of life did haunt me. Any day I could just drop dead. Al did after shopping at Costco he came home and died in Lois’s arms; a massive heart attack. He was 52 years old. Tanya was walking on the sidewalk and was pinned against a bagel store by a car parallel parking. Cathy felt sick in June and died in September the first day of school leaving Leo, Noah’s best friend and his sister.
Life is like walking over a mine field and some of us are going to make it today and some of us aren’t. All of the organic produce and bike riding won’t make a bit of difference. Then what I asked myself am I doing with this precious could end at any second life? Am I doing what I love, what brings me joy, meaning? I wasn’t, not really I was dissatisfied. If I was going to die at any moment was this the life I wanted to live on my possible last day on the planet. The answer was No.
So Wayne and I talked about many things to shake things up. Move somewhere else, live separately, get new jobs, travel around the world. BINGO that one we both loved. Wayne had travelled around the world 3 times in his twenties. He was exploring and falling in love with India and Europe while I was raising and falling in love with Litia.
When I was 18 my best friend Anna and I decided that we would travel around Europe together. So I set up a bank account with my PIN number ROMA to motivate me to save and not spend. I was a much better spender than saver so it might have taken me till 50 to really have saved enough to go. But at twenty when I found out I was Oh no not me I’m too smart to be pregnant. The world travel was put on hold. I instead got the privilege of raising Litia which was a fabulous trip one I wouldn’t change for all the trips around the world. The dream of travelling the world was still there dormant.
Now we would be travelling around the world with our two children Chloe 14 and Noah 12. Luckily a lot had changed since our first trip with them to Ontario where Noah threw his hotwheels around the cabin and could not sit still for a micro second making me think I would never travel with him again.
If you think we are independently wealthy or we won the lottery or we just have a bank account full of cash you would be wrong. We had RSP’s we cashed and a line of credit we were stupid or smart enough to use for emergencies. We would rent out our house and have someone take over our business so we had clients to come back to. We thought we needed $100,000 for the year. Then use the sale of our house for our new retirement plan if we lived that long. Then we would go to the edge of the cliff and jump and hope we would survive. But if life was a minefield better to die on an adventure than standing still.
Chloe was excited about the idea unlike the moving to the Sunshine Coast idea. Noah was a lot less enthusiastic. What about his friends he didn’t want to leave Brennan. Chloe with her big sister charm bewitched him, enough that he trepidatiously agreed. So we set our sights on Dec 2nd departure and worked our butts off getting things ready. I felt like it would of been easier to bulldoze our house down and start over rather than try and organize the mess inside. Wayne spent hours booking flights, researching places to go, places to stay, organizing money, all the details I wasn’t very good at. I unappreciatively of Wayne’s contribution and a classic martyr about all I was doing. I became a grumpy whirling dervish readying the house, friends came over to help and I was sheepishly delighted. If we both weren’t involved I’m not sure how we would of made it on the plane. I wouldn’t of had tickets and the house would of been a disaster. Our itinerary was formed with lots of wishes and talks, books from the library and the lucky meeting online of a family in progress of their own world tour. However that smart family took 5 years to plan and save for their trip where we took 6 months with a sort of plan. Wayne wanted to go to India, I had to go to Africa, Chloe to Venice and London, Noah to Greece and Barcelona. From there we just filled in the blanks and left a lot open to spontaneity.
Our bags were packed we had our travel shots. Wayne and I realized Noah really does have a phobia of needles. The screaming heard in the waiting room and the amount of strength required to pin him down was something we hope not to have to do again. Two weeks before departure the wonderful family we rented the house to backed out and we were left scrambling to find someone else. We had a crack addict in our rental suite that we couldn’t get out of it. We had to hire a sheriff to evict the guy after our court case I could do on the phone from Japan. At the last second our house was rented and we were wearily starting our adventure.