Wow! 4 months!
It's hard to beleive that 4 months have already passed since Sarah and I returned from our trip around the world. That's over half the length of the trip itself. By comparison, in the same amount of time which has passed since we returned home, Sarah and I saw Peru, Bolivia, northern Chile, the Moai of Eastern Island, Tahiti, New Zealand, Tasmania, taken a motorcylce trip through Vietnam, saw Angkor Wat in Cambodia and been to India.
In comparison, it feels like we've barely done anything since we got back.
People say "time flies when you are having fun" but I don't know if that's necessarily true. Instead, I think time flies when you are going about a routine life. Time flies when you can wake up and sort of drift through it on autopilot. When you don't need to actively be considering where you are and what you are doing, that's when time flies. Or to quote another phrase, this one by John Lennon, "life is what happens when you are busy making other plans."
But, at the same time, it's not like Sarah and I have been just sort of drifting along with glazed over looks on our faces. In fact, for the most part the opposite has been true. The time since we've been back has been filled with activity: Moving into our new apartment, going back to work or job hunting, making wine, watching my borther and sister-in-law move to California, cooking Thanksgiving for my family, celebrating the holidays with Sarah's family in Texas, getting caught up on comics, movies, art and music, and on and on.
In fact, if anything, our schedules have been too busy.
Sarah and I just a couple of minutes after New Years 2008, a year older and -with any luck- a world wiser.
Also, to those of you out there in the Interweb, who might be considering doing a trip like this, but are affraid of loosing your job, I have something to tell you: Don't worry. Honestly. As someone who left his long term job, only to return and find a better job, at a more fullfilling company (on, in my case, Foundation), for even better pay than I was making when I left all I can say is that going on the trip might have been the best professional decision I ever made. Honestly.
(Though I will admit that it was a bit touch and go there for a bit when I got back.)
Finally, I'd like to end this with a final thought. The other day, I was looking through the photos from the trip, when a thought drifted through my mind:
"God, that seems like a lifetime ago."
And, as soon as it did, I stopped. I could hardly believe I thought it. But, in some regard, it was already true. That thought made me sad. Time flies.
