I started this blog two and half years ago with the intention of sharing travel stories. I’ve had many amazing adventures, lived many lifetimes, had adventures that I could never have imagined until they were actually happening to me.
But I’ve been silent on the blog lately. I think it’s because I don’t feel like my life at home is worth blogging about.
I work hard at home. I bust my ass every day with an eye ever forward toward the next experience. It’s interesting in a different way, the type of work I’m doing, but I just don’t feel like it’s as noteworthy in the same way as diving with manta rays, or drunkenly sleeping in a Munich park during Oktoberfest, or volunteering with Syrian refugees.
And yet, the buildup is what makes all the other stuff worth it. If I was handed those experiences without having to work for them, they wouldn’t mean as much. I wouldn’t have been as present in those moments.
The work you put in saving for the adventure is what gives the adventure its worth.
In my travels, I met a woman from the Philippines who had saved for FIVE YEARS to go backpacking in southeast Asia for six months. She came from a less affluent background, but she had made a decision. A clear goal gave her motivation to persevere over a slow buildup and a less-than-ideal exchange rate.
Every moment she spent during the time I knew her, she was clear, intentional, and grateful.
She enjoyed every moment, because she had to earn it.
I’ve worked a seasonal life the past few years, saving enough during the summer baseball season to go traveling in the winter. It’s been a good routine, and I recognize how fortunate I’ve been to be earning those sweet, strong, American dollars.
So with every shift, with every sporting event, with every commute, I have to remember that this is when I earn my real life.
It takes time. I have to earn it.
Go Mariners. Go Thunderbirds. Go Seahawks. Et cetera.
