I’ve been planning this trip for almost five years.  That’s a long time to stay focused on one thing.  When you’re planning for something that far in the future, it can sometimes seem like it’ll never come.  Your life gets suspended in this in-between state where your future is known, but distant.  The date has always been “Summer of 2016”, but that has, until now, been this nebulous far-off time frame that might as well have just been “someday”.  So when I look at the calendar now (well, my phone at least), and am reminded that the current year is 2016, it’s pretty exciting.  In a few short months, we’ll be out exploring the world (it feels so good to say “months” rather than “years”).

As a result, something I struggle with is living “in the moment”.  I’ve spent the majority of my adult life planning and preparing for this trip, and the drive for this type of travel and freedom has been a part of me for even longer than that.  When your mindset for upwards of five years is centered around how to get from Point A to Point Z, it can be difficult to take a step back and realize that, hey, Points B through Y have some pretty cool aspects to them as well.  I sometimes find myself frustrated and dissatisfied with my life as it currently is not because there’s necessarily anything wrong with it, but because I have this huge change looming in the (now) not-so-distant future, and it can be hard to focus on anything else.

Ironically, one of the things I’m most looking forward to about the trip is being able to just slow down and really experience life again.  I want to take things one day at a time rather than just following the path that’s already laid out.  So much of my life recently has been planned down to the letter, months or years in advance, that the idea of not knowing what we’ll be doing, whom we’ll be with, or even what country we’ll be in the next day is enticing in a way that no routine can ever be.  I can’t wait to wake up, look over at Bridgette, and say “so do you want to stay in this city a bit longer or go to the bus station and head to a different one?”  That level of day-by-day living just seems like such a relaxing way to live.  It’s hard to worry about tomorrow when you know nothing about it yet!

What I need to do is inject a bit of that mindset into my life in the meantime.  Los Angeles has no shortage of things to do and see, and once we move away it’s going to be much more effort to get back here to see anything we missed.  The name of the game while traveling will be to see and do as much as possible while absorbing the local cultures, so I should make more of an effort to do exactly that while we’re still here in LA.  It’s difficult sometimes to remember that your home city can be just as interesting as some of these foreign places if you put forth the effort to enjoy it.  I’m sure there’s someone out there right now from another country planning a trip similar to ours that has Los Angeles on their must-see list!

Just minutes from our current apartment

2016 is here.  It’s been a long wait, and I’m glad it’s going to pay off very soon.  There’s still a lot left to do in preparation.  We have a consultation next week with a travel clinic to get recommendations for vaccines.  We both have financial goals left to meet.  We need to get a full packing list together and start gathering anything we’re missing.  We need to start slowly getting rid of a bunch of crap that we won’t need so we’re not scrambling to get rid of it all at the last minute.

In the midst of all of that, however, I plan on making more of an effort to enjoy our current situation.  It’s easy to get caught up in plans for the future, but I think anyone can benefit from taking a step back and appreciating what’s going on in the present.  Pretty soon this will be the past, so we might as well make some good memories to look back on!