Prelude

I’ve said this before but it bears repeating, in the age of Facebook and Instagram and all the newfandangled social media things that I’m not even cool enough to know about, where we only present our very best selves and our messy, ugly, less than perfect lives get left offline; where no-one is ever unhappy and no one’s kid ever throws a tantrum; well, I aim to keep it real.  So here’s a look at the messy side of a year-long sabbatical.

We’ve got 28 days until the first leg of our trip commences.  There are 3 things people want to know, almost without fail, when they see me these days.

1. What are you going to do with your chickens?
2. What about the kids school?
3. Are you soooo excited?

The chickens took care of themselves… well, sort of.  We had two left in our flock and one fell ill. Like crazy ill, the kind of ill you never want to deal with.  You know it’s bad when you call your vet friend and describe what’s going on and her response is “that’s gross, even by my standards”.  I would tell you the name of this unfortunate illness but some of you curious types would google it despite the warning and I promise you, you DO NOT want to see those pictures.  Sorry, I clearly have some PTSD around this one. Anyway, let’s just leave it at… that chicken is no longer with us and her buddy put up a “single female searching for single female to coop up with” ad on the local online farm blog and has since packed her clucks and moved across town.  The new farmer reports two happy hens.  Chickens – check!

Number 2.  I’ve already mentioned that I was quite stressed out about Bodhi missing 1st grade and now that just seems downright silly!  The kids will be fine.  As the high school counselor I met with said, “don’t get me wrong, school is important but what you are doing is more important.”  Trading a few months of school for the experiential education field trip of a lifetime is just a no brainer.  That said, there is a fair amount of effort that has gone into making sure that he stays on track with his required credits for graduation. Because while he is all too happy to be skipping out on school for a few months, I’m guessing he doesn’t want to graduate high school at age 20.  As for Josh and 6th grade, the consensus even at his middle school seems to be – meh (insert shoulder shrug)… do some math. He’ll be fine.  He’s cool with that.

Now, about the excitement. Yes, of course I’m excited.  But it’s a little more complicated than that. In the year 2000 when Randy and I quit our jobs and jetted off to Asia for 6 months, I was freaking excited.  I don’t think I had a worry in the world.  I was also 29 years old, had no kids and the worst thing that had ever happened to me was a broken wrist.  We went to Council Travel (a budget, student travel agency), walked out with actual paper tickets for our flights and that was just about the extent of our planning. The internet was kind of a thing but not nearly the all consuming beast of today.  I poured over the Lonely Planet guidebooks (actual paper books) on Nepal, India and Thailand and got more excited by the day about our trip.  We landed in Kathmandu, late in the evening without so much as a hotel reservation.  It was awesome.

Flash forward 19 years.  I’m no longer 29 (I’ll let you do that math if you really must know) We’ve got two kids and the world is a vastly different place.  The first thing I did after we booked our flights (online of course) was to jump to the CDC website and research all the various things that could kill us in the places we are traveling to.  Then I researched evacuation insurance, bought a satellite emergency communication device and booked us appointments at the travel clinic.  There was a little excitement mixed with a moderate amount of fear. The list of non vaccine preventable diseases on the CDC website is long.  Rather than getting excited about the possibility of seeing elephants and lions in the wild I was fretting over barely  pronounceable maladies such as African Trypanosomiasis and Chikungunya. This is not so exciting.

Randy and I fretted about getting renters for our house and our cottage. I set about making checklists and budget lists and to do lists out the wazoo.  My head spun looking on Booking.com and Airbnb just trying to find a place to stay for a couple of nights when we landed in Santiago. (Which, coincidentally, is currently erupting in crazy political turmoil.  Awesome.) There were undertones of excitement to be sure, but it was all a bit overwhelming.  No, it IS all a bit overwhelming.  Cause with sub 30 days and a whole lot more to get done and a family who is reluctant to pack anything away lest they need it between now and November 27th… lawd where’s the bottle of wine?

Alas, when I get my panties into too much of a bunch, I’ve decided it’s a good idea to pause and consider just how much we’ve checked off our to do list already.  We’ve purchased airline tickets for our first leg.  Randy renewed his passport, we’ve successfully rented our house and cottage and dog proofed the yard for the tenants.  I researched (for hours) the above mentioned safety devices and plans, filled epi pen prescriptions for our first aid kit, shopped for insect repellant clothing, booked accommodations where needed (mostly just those precipitating or immediately following an airport departure or arrival, purchased needed gear (Josh’s sleeping bag covered approximately 2/3rd of his long, tall drink of water body last time we checked it), purchased a washer and dryer for our cottage (where we will live in the spring) repaired drywall in the house, met with Bodhi’s high school counselor and exchanged countless emails with teachers about the plan for his schoolwork, cleaned out the garden (in progress) dental visits, health check ups, travel heath appointments, vehicle parking places (Thank you Brekke-Hutchings and Tucker families!) Audiobooks, Permethrin spray, auto replies, googlemaps,outletconvertersmailholdpackhousecleanoutfridge….

Woah… so sorry! I don’t know what happened there.  I think I got bored reading my own to do list and the line between what’s done and what needs to be done blurred into a mind numbing, panic inducing tailspin.

Ok, I’m being dramatic now, I know.  Things will get done.  I’m adding “monitor situation in Chile and make necessary adjustments” to my to do list.  Don’t worry Mom, it will be fine, really.  One way or another November 27th will arrive and we will hop on that train to Vancouver to begin our adventure.  Chances are there will be some things left undone. I figure if we have our children and our passports in tow everything else will work itself out.  Now, I just have to rinse and repeat that mantra.  You have my permission to remind me of this the next time you see me all in a dither.  Now,  back to the checklists!