stop the madness...

Things are getting a bit out of control.  We should really get better at twiddling our fingers and sitting quietly.  Maybe we should watch more movies to keep from talking or play more cribbage.  Sadly, we didn't pack the cribbage, catan or any other board for this "quick" trip up the coast and it might just get us into trouble. Karma still doesn't seem ready to leave.  She seemed back to her normal self yesterday and was willing to walk around town with us and even showed some interest in chasing a coconut on the beach.  Sadly she still isn't fond of keeping drugs down and the vet just advised us to postpone our return yet again.  We'll be here at least a few more days. As we scour the town and surrounding coastline looking for things to do we keep coming back to our talks about what's next.  I spend my nights mocking up designs of what we could do with various lots and dilapidated buildings in town and when jen's awake we make spreadsheets and bubble diagrams trying to chart our course for the future.

Two days ago while driving our poor rental car down rocky doubletracks through the jungle and hiking in to look out over beautiful vistas we made a decision.  We decided that we should simply stay in this small mexican town and invest- see if we can make a living by opening a gallery. We could display some art and it would give us an excuse to dive into creativity and make things for fun.  Maybe someone would even want to buy them and we could survive off a small income when tourists fill the streets in the high season.  According to our spreadsheets, we likely wouldn't have enough money in the first few years to travel back home as often as we'd like, but we could pull through and maybe even convince a few friends to hop the short flight down to visit in the winter.

24 hours later we are discussing pulling out our 401ks to make a larger investment with less risk/more potential.  We decide on a tiny lot off the main street with a shanty we can remodel into a few commercial storefronts to lease out.  It's not like the 401ks have treated us well, nor have we ever counted on them for retirement...  We make a plan to give ourselves a day, then walk into the owner's office and make him an offer, with a backup plan if it isn't accepted.  We have talked with our accountant, verified timelines and feel good about our decision.  We are ready to take the next leap.

By midmorning the entire plan is turned upside down.  We find ourselves on an impromptu skype with close friends back home and gawking over their adorable son.  The same one who was born 2 months after we left and whose cheeks we still haven't squeezed.  The fact that we haven't yet met him might bring us to tears were we not so elated to see and talk with them.  We get off the call and within minutes find ourselves discussing options of returning home to chase another path.  Putting our money instead into finishing some house projects we never got to while working full time and traveling; and to see if we can sell the house as the market recovers.

A few hours before we were collecting business cards of contractors and charting schedules for our return to this little beach town with the bus.  Now we pause to laugh at ourselves as we list repairs back home and plan projects required before trying to put our home on the market (again).  Are we really this bipolar?  Is it really this difficult to figure our what we want to do with our lives?

The easy answer is yes. Without having let go of what we knew in search of what we didn’t know- we couldn't have even engaged in these conversations and certainly wouldn’t be willing to do anything about them.  I remember being so completely frozen in fear that everything else seemed impossible.   When asked to dream about our future i would always be overpowered by logic telling me why not, before even allowing myself to explore the possibilities of how.  Now my brain doesn’t shoot down a possible path until it's actually proven currently unobtainable.  Money is still our largest hurdle (as it is for most everyone) but this seems like only a hurdle rather than a wall that stops conversation.  As we sit here in a foreign place with no idea or direction for our lives, every reasonable path seems somehow achievable and most even seem fun.

At this point its fair to say we have have no idea where we are headed...but we're certainly excited to find out!