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November 04, 2003
I've caught the travel bug
So, Drew and I have been toying with the idea of getting a house... Big comitment. If we get a house it will be a duplex so the income from renters would cover the cost of the morgage at the very least. This is exciting to think about however the type of commitment this is is very looming. I've had a travel bug that I don't know I can burry for much longer. I'm not talking about going on vacation somewhere for two or three weeks.... no I want a living experience somewhere for at least 8 months or so.
We never traveled when I was a kid, so aside from my trips to Pennsic in PA and a weekend trip out to Britsh Columbia, I havn't traveled outside of Ontario. I have seen much of what Ontario has to offer,Big cities with dirty air that stains the sky brown and yellow. Still deep lakes with soft carved out of stone by glaciers thousands of years ago. Silent winters with 5 feet of snow, Blazing hot humid summers. There are alot of extremes here. I think I want to go somewhere where the weather is, for the most part, the same year round.
I remeber back in grade 3 and 4 we used to have to cut out contenents or provinces and glue them to bristol board where they belonged like puzzle peices, We had to name the moutain ranges, the plains, the rivers lakes, oceans and countires.Other kids in my class all got to say places they have traveled and what it was like there, When the teacher asked me where I have been I told her nowhere but here.I was embarrassed to admit that to my peers and even felt a little jealous. One girl was even from South Africa
I rember staring and drifting off in daydreams wondering what it would be like to live on Victoria Island, the United Kingdom, Japan, Hawaii the Dominican Republic,or New Zealand. These were all places on islands surounded by vast oceans. I knew a little about how the great lakes protected us from the worst of the cold and the worst of the heat. I guess the idea that an entire ocean protected these places was like magic to me. I knoew that plants and animals would be different, that mountains would tim the horrizon, and there would be deep oceans full of life. I never really did get any of that out of my head I still day dream about it now.
Way back just before Drew and I started dating, I signed up to do a program called Katimavik. I was going to see three provinces in Canada over a period of 9 months. I was going to live with 11 people half of whom would speak French. This was going to be a big adventure. But one night in my flirting with Drew he got up the nerve to finally Kiss me. This was 3 weeks before I was to leave. It wasn't a hard descision to make for me to stay because I knew from the start what I was to have with Drew was going to be big. A Bigger adventure than Katimavik could ever be. I have known Drew since we were 5, I couldn't leave a long friendship that became somthing more for such a long time. It wouldn't be fair to either of us.I decided to stay because I had all the time in the world to travel, I needed to stay here to work on our relationship.
I don't know why I included that. I want to take that paragraph out.But I refuse to erase it because it just wouldn't make this entry real if I did. Now I want to say I don't regret staying. But I think I can't help but have part of me wish I took that adventure because it would have been travel, Travel I havn't experienced. I guess it's the same part that is making me long to leave now, now that things with Drew and I are where they are.
But now that things with Drew and I have come to this climax in our life, there is a new story that can take one of any direction. I guess part of me is looking back at Katimavik and says that If we get that house I will have to wait to travel again.I've been through so much upheaval and moving in the last while that getting a house would settle part of me and in the traditional sence set the stage for married life. I know Drew has several years of school he still wants to complete, and right now it seems easiest to get them over with here.
I know there must be ways that we may be able to experience all of this at once, but it still seems to be a decision that means one or the other because I couldn't get the most out either one if we do both at the same time. Well this is a road that has yet to be written. No matter what happens I know it will be exciting.
Sometimes you just wish you had a crystal ball to look into to know your taking the right path. Or maybe I should just stop wondering and worrying and let life offer what it means to offer. Seems to never have failed in the past right when you are at a point of a big decision just give up making the decision and things fall in place for you. It's never turned out for the worse before...