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One Week Left in the States | The Time to Go Is Now

One Week Left in the States

One Week Left in the States
Image of Home Office
Enjoying the comfort of my home office for one more week. I expect the views to improve considerably in the near future.

This is our last week in the US this year. I’ve reread that previous sentence twenty times and it still sounds weird. Don’t mistake that for trepidation. I’ve moved through that. Everything seems to be on track and when I do have a free moment to think about the trip I’m excited and ready to go.

The car has been sold. Jobs have been quit. Prescriptions have been filled. Partially filled restaurant loyalty cards for free lunches have been given away. We’re trying to find a way to eat what we have in the house. “Does this look freezer burnt?” And trying to polish off as many near empty liquor bottles as possible. “This’ll taste good in coffee, right?”

Being out of work I’ve already reverted to my natural late night sleeping pattern. I could fly to Hawaii tomorrow and experience zero jet lag because I’m currently functioning 5 hours behind Eastern Time. This will shift back towards “normal” once we are traveling. I hope.

My backpack is on the floor with a stack of things that will be going into it piled nearby. Waiting on a couple more items to be delivered this week and have a few articles of clothing that still need to be purchased.

I’ve already started working on my taxes to get as much done before we leave so they are easy to wrap up on the road when I get my official numbers.

And if preparing for the trip, going through everything in the house and doing taxes weren’t enough I decided that I would probably want access to some of my non-digitized photos for various reasons during the next year. I started scanning them while doing other work this weekend. I won’t make it through all of them but it will be nice to have them backed up and available.

We are making steady progress working through our to-do list. All the things that need to get done will get done. After being cooped up by all the snow and not having a car I’m ready to go.

I have this thing I do before I go on vacation or major trips. I don’t remember when I started doing it but I’ll stand in front of the bathroom mirror and have a brief conversation with myself. (I talk to myself a lot. I think it is genetic.) I try to remind myself that what is about to happen will be over in the blink of an eye and I will eventually be standing right back in front of that mirror, brushing my teeth with nothing but memories from whatever trip we just took. It might sound somewhat depressing but it is an attempt to get me to lighten up and enjoy what I’m about to experience. It helps get me in the right frame of mind, focus on what really matters and to let go of all of the bullshit in my head. The end of this upcoming trip is so far off that it is hard to imagine it even existing, but it is there.

Before we know it we will be on the plane and on our way. Yes, I will eventually end up back in front of that mirror but that’s a long way off and there’s a lot to do between now and then. I don’t think it has completely sunk in that we won’t be coming back after a couple weeks. Should be fun when it does.

11 Responses to One Week Left in the States

  1. I just wanted to thank Julie , I am one of the lucky one’s who received a free lunch card.
    Already used it when we had our last lunch together before she left us here at New Sunshine,.
    But the idea of looking in the mirror is a great one, so I know what I will be thinking every morning when I am brushing my teeth before I head off to my job, “so I wonder where Julie and Mark are brushing their teeth today”…. I hope once you return when you look in that mirror you will say to yourself that was the best time of my life now on with the rest of it.
    With the biggest smile ever

  2. I have been thinking about you all a lot as you prepare to leave on your international trip and I look forward to the end of my international trip when I get back from Cancún next week. 🙂

    I hope we can all see each other in Europe this summer! <>

  3. I cannot wait to start to receive your updates. You will have the time of your life. If you go to China, there is a guy from Batesville doing basically the same thing you two will be doing, only he is staying in China. Have fun and create lots of great memories.

  4. When you write that book about your travels, just know you will have an editor more than ready to help. 🙂 Have fun!

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We're Mark & Julie

We quit our jobs at the end of 2013 to backpack around the world. We're sharing our stories, travel advice and hopefully some inspiration. Read more...

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