Getting Started

Since I'm the practical one in our marriage, my first reaction is to create a checklist of practical issues to address before we can make this dream a reality.

It's weird being the practical one, actually, because I was always the slightly less practical member of my immediate family. My brothers are both oriented toward the "hard sciences" - they are involved in computers, business, sales, and areas that our current society actually values. I, on the other hand, was involved in music, writing, literature, art, theater, and philosophy. I wanted to be either an Broadway singer or a writer in the mode of William Faulkner or Virginia Woolf - slightly unbalanced (Ok, a LOT unbalanced), prone to heavy drinking, and working my way through a series of immediately gratifying but ultimately boring relationships with people only slightly less unbalanced than I. Think Gloria Steinham meets Earnest Hemingway.

However, I am my father's daughter, and hard work and perseverance won out over my imagined Dionysian lifestyle. So, more than 20 years into the real world of work (god, has it really been that long?), I find myself realizing that hard work and perseverance don't necessarily lead to happiness. Love and freedom do.

Having a partner who is a dreamer is exciting. It keeps me guessing, it makes me stop and think about whether what I'm doing now is what I want to be doing for the rest of my life, and it gives me leeway to dream about possibilities that don't necessarily involve building up a 401K and accruing vacation days. My dad worked at the same horrible job for 30 years. He did it because he had a family to provide for and three children to put through school (Thanks Daddy!). But he was under-appreciated, under-paid, and working for people who were far below his caliber in both intellect and character. Did he work that hard only to see his daughter do the same? I have to think that he didn't. I know I don't want my children giving up their dreams for the sake of home equity and 3% yearly raises.

I want to be a writer. I was meant to be a writer, I think, but I won't find the time to be what I'm meant to be if I have to devote 60 hours a week to a job that pays the bills but little else.

So, when my best friend said, "Let's sell the house and all our stuff, buy a boat, and sail around the world together," I didn't laugh because I don't think it's a bad idea. I think it's going to take a great deal of planning and work, but it is not impossible.

So....if we're gonna do this, then the Voice of Reason (me) says you have to have some benchmarks.

Next blog: Benchmarks!

Where do we begin?

I guess the first step was to put the idea out there. The conversation was awkward to say the least. How do I bring something like what I was thinking about up without coming out as totally wacko? I mean we talk about everything and it's not like I didn't know that what I was thinking wasn't an original idea. People think about it all the time. People say they are going to do something like it all the time. So I just said. Honey, here is my idea. I have to admit I was and still am a little confused by the reaction I got. I was expecting a little push back, but what I got was she thought it sounded great. I mean she wasn't all "let's do it tomorrow." She is the practical one of our pair. :) But she actually started looking up more information about it and got right on board. I'm still kind of wondering though if she is just biding her time. Holding some cards close. Thinking to herself, “ He has finally gone off the deep end.” :) Time will tell. :)