Change In Plans

TALLULAH AND STYLING NEW HAT IN CAPE TOWN

Greetings from Cape Town!  This short post is about feeling lucky: lucky that we changed our original plan for the second half of 2008, lucky that we have had the opportunity to take this amazing trip while so many people are struggling, and lucky that we have all been safe and healthy in our travels to date.

 Way back on June 7th, when I wrote my first-ever blog post, I started with a list of blessings that I was grateful for.  Six months later, I am even more grateful.

Many times, particularly on days when the stock market haS tanked, friends have written or said, “You really picked the right year to be taking this trip.”  I appreciate the sentiment, but I have to say that the year picked me, rather than the other way around.  

Up until late May, our plan was: move from New Jersey to San Diego in June, continue working hard in my job as President of a medical-devices company, hope for the best.  Until the evening that my boss and I had the conversation that led me to resign, I was totally committed to that plan.  We had sold our New Jersey house, gotten our kids into a great private school in La Jolla, and were a day from being contractually committed to buying a house in San Diego itself.  We had even mapped out the daily travel plan for our drive out to California.

During our trip, I have reflected countless times on where we would be if our plans hadn’t changed.  

• We would be carrying a colossal mortgage on a house which was worth 10-20% less than what we paid. (We managed to get our down payment back in late June, and the house eventually sold in late July for 15% less than our agreed price.  It has almost certainly gotten worse since then.)  
• We would be frantic about money: all of our savings would have been in the (evaporated) equity of a house we stretched to afford, and I would not have been receiving the bonuses I needed to cover the mortgage.  I seem to behave erratically when I feel financial pressure, so who knows how badly I would be acting.  
• We would have unresolved marital and parenting issues, mostly related to me working so hard and traveling so much, compounded by financial pressures.
• Although San Diego seems like a wonderful place to live, we would be newcomers in a city far from our friends and family.

When I think about this, I thank God (or gods plural, when we were in India and Nepal) that things have worked out the way they have.  Basically this was dumb good luck.

We have also felt very lucky to be financially insulated and far away from New York during the financial crisis.  Watching it all from a distance, and sympathizing with friends and family members who have been directly affected, has been gutwrenching.  Seeing friends in the Catskills and in Manhattan when we were in the U.S. in October made it all more real.  No one seems to be having fun at work, and no one seems to be making money.  

To be honest, I have felt occasional flashes of “Stockholm Syndrome” guilt, for not being in the thick of it, suffering alongside my friends and peers.  The few times I have mentioned this emotion, though, the immediate response from each listener has been: “Don’t be ridiculous.  How could that possibly help anyone or make anyone else feel better.”  Fair point, I guess.  

As India (the person) described it: “We are in a bubble.  It is a bubble we can see out of, and we can see the effects in the U.S. and in the countries we are visiting.  But it is a bubble.”  We know that some time in early 2009, the bubble will be popped, and we will go back to the daily realities of our lives.  In the meanwhile, we feel lucky in our bubble.

Finally, we feel lucky that we have not had any health or safety problems during the trip (knock wood).  I am still surprised that none of us got food poisoning during our seven weeks in India and Nepal.  Despite having to struggle mightily (and with only limited success) to get Tallulah to take her malaria medicine, we appear to have escaped malaria as well.

More dramatically, in August we flew out of Madrid airport only a few hours before a jet crashed on the runway there.  We missed being at the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai during the attacks by about 36 hours. Without a change in plans that sent us to Kerala for three days, we would have been there as well.  We have shuddered to think how our lives would be different if we had been in Mumbai, left the kids with a babysitter, and gone downstairs for dinner.  

BIG BIRD-SIZED HOLE IN THE WING

Finally, we feel extremely lucky that our ancient Yeti Air Twin Otter airplane did not crash when we hit a bird and ripped a big hole in the wing.  In October, an identical Yeti Air plane crashed near Mt. Everest, killing all 16 foreign tourists aboard.  We are glad that we have never shared that bit of Yet Air aviation history with our nervous son.

So, I hope I haven’t jinxed us by talking about how lucky we feel.  The small challenges and stresses we have dealt with while traveling are nothing, compared to how bad it could be. The joy and learning and family time are all a bonus.

This has been an extraordinary six months, and an extraordinary gift we have been given.  We are all looking forward to the rest of the trip.

FEELING LUCKY IN OUR BUBBLE