My Life Vacation Has Begun

The KrautHounds enjoying the early warmth of spring in Martigues, France. March 26, 2022.

It seems like the vacation of my life has begun. But this is not a vacation as many people will think about it. It is not a lifetime spent on a Caribbean island, sitting by the pool sucking down mojitos... though I do hope to do that at some point. It’s more like a mental and emotional vacation. The scary and life-changing (and potentially life-fuck-upping) decision my wife and I made - deciding to quit our jobs so we could move to France - is beginning to bare the fruits I had hoped it would.

To be clear... my mental vacation also happens to be in the middle of a very physical one. My wife and I are fully unemployed and have been road tripping around France for almost three weeks. But the fact that we chose this path makes all the difference. For the rest of my life, I can never think, “what if...” because I am living the what-if life. I left the questions behind and I’m finding the answers. The answers I find may or may not be good for me, but at least I will know. I got out - out of the four walls that I built up around my imagination of myself. I always thought I wasn’t meant for the expected path, now it’s time to prove it.

I am fully aware of and consider my failure in this life adventure a high probability. But I am totally OK with that and the life that I think might follow. And why? Because this was my choice. The biggest choice of them all, “how will I live my life?” After many years of being a passenger in my own life, I have finally taken control of it. And the failure that may come with that is so much more of an acceptable life-journey than the failure that comes from someone else’s groove that I just settled into.

Also - I’m going to make some sauerkraut with cabbage that I grow myself. That is important to note.