Painting My Spirit Gold

I kind of can’t believe I’m doing this.  I never really thought I’d be one to keep or start a blog.  I had diaries and journals off and on throughout my elementary and junior high years and even while I studied abroad in Spain and volunteered in Nepal. However, writing a blog never really appealed to me.  I love reading other people’s blogs but I guess I just never really thought I’d be that person anyone else would want to read about.  So here is my big debut into the virtual world!

I also can’t believe this moment is here.  Dan and I have both left our jobs and told all of our friends and family.  The cat is completely out of the bag and the trip is now suddenly feeling more real.  Even with all of that happening, it is still surreal. For the time being, we are still living our normal lives.

I’m also additionally having a hard time grasping the fact that the two years have come and gone since we decided we were doing this.  For my first blog post, I thought it would be fun to share something I wrote almost two years ago in another blog that I never decided to publish.

October 31, 2013

The idea of keeping a blog came to me a couple of weeks ago when Dan and I were in the car on the way to go apple picking in Woodstock, IL about an hour away.  We were talking about our “30 before 30” list coming up with things like scuba certification, doing another trek, learning a language, etc. (although we never really came up with anything concrete) and were talking about this “trip” we will hopefully be taking in 2015 to South America. And by trip I mean, leaving everything here and booking a one way flight, seeing where our money takes us and not really having a solid plan.

This has been a dream of mine ever since I started learning Spanish in 7th grade – to live, travel, and see everything South America has to offer.  Our honeymoon in Peru in 2012 solidified the fact that I must not only return to Peru but to South America as well.  And honestly, I can’t even remember now how we came up with THIS idea to save up enough money over the next year or so we could leave our jobs at some point (not because we aren’t happy in Chicago) but because this is something I need to do in my lifetime – and Dan was happy (thankfully) to be along for the ride.

So far, this has been an idea and something we get excited to talk about (usually when we’ve been drinking and everything sounds like a great idea then) but it almost never really seemed like anything real.  We kept saying we were going to wait until after Rebecca and Matt’s wedding in Paris to really start planning.  Well, guess what?  It is officially 2 months exactly after their wedding and I guess it’s time to start making this a reality.

I have to say that I am pretty proud that myself and Dan have kept the same vision that we had all that time ago and have stuck to our goal.  We are still going to South America, have no set plan, and are on our way to booking flights and making arrangements.  We are going to make our dream a reality.

Painting my Spirit Gold will be about this traveling journey but I’m also hoping it will be more than that.  I’ve been really adamant that I don’t want to “escape” my life here in Chicago – I just want to try a new lifestyle and do things for a while to see if they really make me happy.  I’m looking forward to having some freedom, trying new things, having time to think, exploring potential passions, and reconnecting with Dan and myself on another level.