A little idea…
Okay, so I’m not the greatest at writing down all of the ideas that come into my head, or following through on them for that matter. I have the best of intentions, but like most of us, time is my enemy. There is always something else that gets in the way, that becomes my priority. By the time I can sit in front of a computer to write down my thoughts or put pictures together, I don’t remember what I was going to say in the first place.
But this is important. This is a once in a lifetime chance. I want to keep a record of our journey and how it started. For me, for our family, for anyone that wants to read it. Life is so fleeting, that’s why we did this in the first place. Atleast, that is how the conversation between Ben and I started. It was always a joke, a pipe dream, never anything that would really happen. But as we sat on the beach of Assateague Island and watched our kids run in and out of the waves with our dog, we started thinking it could be a reality. September, just 2 weeks into virtual school, the kids not loving school like they used to, me definitely not loving teaching through a screen, the dream became a real conversation.
We love to travel, we love little adventures. Our only escape from the Covid reality was camping. The “let’s just pack it all up and hit the road” thought became more of a question. Could we really change our entire lifestyle and leave everything behind? A year ago, the answer would have been no. I love teaching. Truly, it is the career I am meant to do. It took awhile for me to figure that out. But virtual teaching isn’t the same. High School science is very different through a screen. I missed my students, my classroom, my lab. And what about Ben? He built a business from nothing. Grew a marketing firm that now had several employees, big clients and a killer office in Annapolis. Sloan and Jackson loved their school and friends. They played sports and had girl scouts and cub scouts. But we all know, Covid changed everything. Ben lost clients. The children didn’t see their friends or play sports like they did last year. This became a real possibility.
On top of it all, houses in our community were selling like hot cakes. This was our chance to put money in the bank and show our children the beauty this country has to offer. An added bonus was the forced relinquishing of material possessions to remind our children (and ourselves) what is truly important in this life. The rest of our weekend in Assateague was spent talking about this with each other and the children. Neither of us slept, I had a knot in my stomach all night, I cried, I felt like it would be irresponsible to leave my students, friends and family. I was petrified. The same questions kept coming up. Can we afford it? Can we work on the road? Will we regret it? That was the big one. Will we regret it? By the time we left Assateague, we knew the answer. We would never regret taking the risk, but we may always regret not doing it. Decision made.
So three months later, here we are. A couple, 2 kids, a cat and a dog hitting the road. One year, 50 states (hopefully), one big adventure. Will we make it? Will we throw in the towel? Will we love it? We will see….
