Change In Plans

Let me start by counting a few blessings:
1- happy, healthy, supportive, and adaptive family
2- good physical and mental health
3- a great network of friends, acquaintances and former colleagues around the world
4- enough money to make it feasible to travel as a family for a year

5- confidence (misplaced or not) that we can pick up our personal and professional lives whenever and wherever we return

As a family, we have had a change in plans. Literally ten days before our long-planned move from New Jersey to San Diego, my boss and I had a discussion which caused me to resign my corporate job. No need to move to San Diego.

Fortunately, “resignation with good reason,” meant that I did not leave empty handed. My wife’s immediate response, having spent months preparing for the move to California, was to suggest that we travel for a year. We had already sold our house and pulled our kids (8 and 3) from school, so we diverted the moving trucks to a storage space instead of to a new house. We bought a bunch of books and a big wall calendar, and we started to plan a long trip. I have been working and/or in school since I was 12 years old (I turned 42 today).

Not sure why I want to write about this time in our lives, or whether anyone would want to read it. Travelogue meets family sitcom meets mid-life crisis meets journey of self-discovery. If nothing else, it will encourage our 8-year-old son to write about where we go, and what he is learning.

Like many round-the-world trips, our started with a few days in Nashville. From here, we go to Bermuda to really think through what we are trying to accomplish, and to plan the big sections of the trip. After that, we have six weeks at our cabin in the mountains, and then off we go.

Good things will come of this: time together as a family, deeper understanding of ourselves and of the world, connecting and reconnecting with people around the world, maybe some growing up for all of us.