Enough

A wave of ice cold water crashing over us

Perhaps the strangest part of this journey for me so far has nothing to do with geography. It is spending emotional time with the idea of “enough.”

For the past decade of kids and careers and networking and professional growth, it has never felt like “enough.” There was never enough time to do all that could be done. Promotions and raises and new jobs that came with additional money also put us in contact with peers and colleagues who made (and spent) more than us by amounts that were staggering. Was what we had enough?

When we started talking about this trip with people almost a decade ago, I remember one of my mentors saying, “but you’ll be giving up a year of income in your prime earning years! Compounding interest means it will cost you so much when it comes to retirement.” And she was right.

Many of our friends and colleagues have questioned, “what will you do when you get back? How do you know you’ll find something? What if you make less money?” And they were right.

As both Theresa and I really experience what it means to be largely disconnected from the policy and community battles that continue to rage, the words of so many people to us echo back, “if you’re not in this fight now, will you still be relevant when you return?” Maybe they’re right.

There is a strangeness a day with one objective (walk to the Arc d’ Triumph) and no timeline.

It is a foreign feeling to not hurry the kids along past the impromptu climbing session on the riverbanks. It takes the waiter forever to bring our food, and I am trying to just breathe it out - this is where we are supposed to be. The line for the aquarium in Lisbon was an hour, which clearly made it the right time to climb trees, race around fountains, and mentally design zombieproof fortifications. The girl practicing the organ in the Church we are visiting clearly deserves our attention.

Twice now, I have bought a New York Times that I have read front to back (skipping anything I didn’t feel like reading, even if I “should.”) . I bought a third this morning as Ava and I went on a hunt for fresh-baked bread.

There is a to-do list.

Traveling like this requires a massive investment in logistical planning (another blog about that at some point). COVID entry requirements in our future destinations require constant monitoring (we had a near-miss of testing and validation in Portugal when the requirements changed because of Delta). VRBOs have to be found and reserved for the varying size of our group. The kids have started virtual school (shout-out to Rachel Stack and the Great Minds curriculum), and we need to read/respond to their first assignments.

Things back home require some attention too (a tree fell in our yard back home, a tenant in a rental property has an issue).

There is an inbox with things I’m working on for UofL as that takes an increasingly concrete shape.

I think what I’m realizing is that that life I constructed was frantic because that’s what I chose.

I kept adding in things, often “small” things, because they were fun and cool and impactful and interesting. And the whole added up to a very satisfying personal and professional life. But what I am coming to is the idea that those things also added up to a life spent in a state of constantly feeling on the edge of being overwhelmed.

I am not saying that didn’t serve me well.