We made it onto the plane! I’m typing this in the middle seat, row 21, as we travel in the air from Boston to Vancouver. It’s officially the first day of our sabbatical year.
We’ve been planning for months to leave our jobs and rent out our house, so that we can spend a year traveling and living internationally with our 11 year old daughter. Still, it’s been hard to imagine reaching this milestone.
The past 30 days in particular have been a long march through a formidable list of tasks to unhook ourselves from our lives in Massachusetts. Some tasks, like moving our fish tank to my sister’s house, have been low stakes but logistically complicated. Others, like choosing a global health insurance plan, have been high stakes and expensive. And yet other tasks, like packing, have been tedious and surprisingly emotionally demanding.
I don’t know anyone who likes packing up their house, but I did appreciate the opportunity to re-evaluate everything I own and decide whether it’s worth keeping. We spent our first week of unemployment decluttering the basement and felt so satisfied with the results that we wondered why we hadn’t done it earlier. As I moved onto my office and bedroom, I quickly fatigued from making dozens of tiny decisions about silly things like unused gift cards, foreign coins from a trip to Europe a decade ago, and electronic cables waiting to be used to their full potential.
Decluttering forced me to confront unfinished plans I’d harbored for too long: interesting books I am never going to read, pretty fabric I am never going to sew into a dress, funky jewelry I’m never going to get around to repairing.
Tiring though it was, packing helped me let go of past plans and step into the future unencumbered. At this point, all the preparations are behind us. Everything I’m bringing with me is on this plane. New experiences lie ahead, starting the moment we get off this plane. Here we go!