Trails across oceans

I've been having the urge to live in a foreign country for so long now that I can't even remember when it began. I remember it hitting me most strongly when I came back from my first trip to Europe. I realized with startling clarity that for the last 2 1/2 months I had been carrying everything I needed in a 30-pound pack on my back. I hadn't missed any of my stuff back home. In fact I had felt remarkably unburdened.

I came home and cleaned out my house, giving or throwing away more than half of what I owned at the time. That took a lot of courage for my inner packrat. But, man, there's an amazing high that comes with letting go. I've been considering letting go again.

Mike and I have been talking about taking some time to live abroad for a while after he's done with his degree. I started looking into this last fall since I knew it would go through several incarnations. At the moment we're looking at New Zealand.

It's scary, the prospect of selling or giving away a lot of our belongings and moving halfway around the world. I'm not sure what in me has changed, but that fear is part of the reason I want to do this. Or maybe I'm more terrified of stagnation than I am of jumping off that cliff. I love my family, and they are the real reason I haven't done this before now. I was afraid that in leaving them behind I might hurt their feelings, that they might miss me, that they might think I was doing something stupid, that I might actaully do soemthing stupid and disappoint them.

But I've been hesitating for so long that I feel like one of those wind-up cars that is so wound, it's going to sling-shot across the room. I've found all these reasons to justify it, but truthfully, I need the thought of it as much as I want the reality. Especially being at home with the Bean, walking in circles, I need something, a landmark on the horizon, to move toward. The sight of it alone gives me hope.

I'm sure many of my friends and family think it has a lot to do with my transition from an academic to a stay-at-home mom, but truthfully that's not it at all. It's my escape goat. He's finally gotten loose from his pasture.


PS. (If you haven't, read the blog entry on escape goats, do. It's poetic and so very true.)