July 2018 – The Escape Hatch

95%

Have you ever updated something on your computer, have it get stuck at 95% and just freeze? Yeah, that’s how Lea and I feel right now. Our flight leaves for Ecuador a week from Wednesday and while we’ve been pushing and pushing to get ready, it feels as if we’ve been stuck at 95% and can’t get all the way finished. So far the only thing we’ve completed is rehoming our cat. The rest is just… Argh!

Here’s a list, because the Internet likes lists.

Boxing Up, Selling, and Otherwise Disposing

We’ve been asked several times if we’re keeping our home while we’re away. Since it’s just an apartment (one where the property owners recently decided to install outdoor speakers that blare pop music 24 hours a day), no we’re not staying. But that means that every item we’re not taking with us needs to be either boxed up and stored, sold off, or thrown away. We’ve been downsizing in stages for years now, but we’ve still just got stuff.

We’ve sold a bunch, including one of our cars (sale pending on the other). We’ve donated books, DVDs, and comics to the library. We’ve thrown many things in the dumpster (with more still to go), and we’ve put lots and lots of our belongings into boxes. Nevertheless, there’s still a lot left because we can’t stop living and need things like clothing and food, at least for a while. There was a rapid frenzy of boxing things several weeks ago, then everything has slowed to a crawl as we hit items that 1) we still might need, or 2) are large, awkward, and hard to fit anywhere.

Signing Our Lives Away

Not to mention the metric butt-ton of paperwork, contracts, and legal documents we’ve got to get in order. We’ve packed up and moved before without as much hassle – you don’t have to get your whole lives on paper just to change cities or change jobs. Leaving the country on your own nickel without benefit of an employer’s per diem or insurance coverage, well, that’s an Amazonian tree frog of a different color.

First, even though we don’t anticipate any terrible danger per se, it’s not a bad idea to get one’s wills and advance healthcare directives in order. And, since we’ll certainly need someone stateside to take care of financial matters (and check our P.O. Box from time to time) we’re hiring a personal assistant company and giving a family member our power of attorney. All of which requires lengthy forms to be filled out, signed, witnessed and/or notarized, filed with the courts, copied, and mailed to all necessary parties. We’ve checked off more than half of those boxes, but there are still some left to go and the clock is ticking.

And that’s the easy part. The hard part? Finding health coverage. We’re losing our employer-sponsored health care and going out on our own. Most U.S. plans are only good if you reside in the states, so we’re having to go with an expat policy. Which meant finding one with halfway decent reviews, filling out a lengthy application, then filling out even lengthier questionnaires about our medical history and current issues, every one of which pushes that premium up, up, and away. The one we chose (not going to mention who, because they’re not paying me to advertise) has an expat plan that also offers coverage in the U.S. but at twice the price. What’s even better, the U.S. coverage isn’t ACA compliant, so we’re still going to get stiffed with a tax penalty at the end of the year. The solution? Ditch the U.S. coverage and just make sure we get medical treatment anywhere except the United States if something happens to us.

Where are we in that process? Well, there’s one more form to sign, scan, and send back in. As with everything else, we’re still at 95%.

Wining and Dining

Understandably, before we start our grand adventure all of our friends and family want to see us off. This has led to traveling around to visit folks and a lot of meeting people for lunch and/or dinner in and around Atlanta. Which has been great – we love eating out and spending time with people – but it’s been chewing into our prep time and causing last-minute waistline expansion which we’ll have to make up for by switching to a ramen-only diet before we leave. Seeing all our friends one more time before we go is a welcome respite from the dreaded “doing stuff” and at the same time the nagging, responsible voices in the back of our heads keep telling us we ought to be at home printing another form or packing another box.

To try and take care of a lot of goodbyes in one fell swoop, we’re hosting a “Rum Sail Away” going away party for ourselves and two other friends who are also leaving town. (Hey Sonica! Hey Erin!) This will hopefully be a great time, let us see a bunch of folks all at once, and clean out my Caribbean rum collection which has been growing faster than I’ve been drinking.

Once we’ve scratched that off the to-do list, we’ve got a plan to push that 95% completion up to at least 99%. We will spend Monday driving around, signing and filing documents, returning overdue library books, picking up prescriptions, and generally putting the last nail in the paperwork’s coffin. On Tuesday we’re not going to leave the apartment or communicate with anyone (except via GrubHub) until the apartment is Packed. Caput. Finito.

Wednesday I pick up a moving truck. Thursday we move the Stuff into Storage. Friday will be for odds and ends, and sometime before we leave we’ll have to give the apartment a thorough scrub down. Even though we know the apartment complex is going to rip everything out and renovate the place as soon as we’re out the door, we still want our damn deposit back.

And then, just maybe, we’ll sit back and binge Narcos on Netflix until our plane takes off.

Stay tuned, compadres.

Leaving Miss Piggy

This is Miss Piggy. We think she’s about ten years old, but we’re not sure. She was already an adult when we found her in 2013, scrounging for scraps in the compost heap behind our house in Birmingham. Once we fed her and got her to trust us, it became clear that she’d been somebody’s house cat. She’d already been spayed, she was terrible at fending for herself in the wild, she ate every meal as if it might be her last, and our vet let us know that she was an actual breed (a Bombay). We posted signs in all the nearby neighborhoods, with all the local veterinarians, and on lost animal forums online, but were unable to locate her owners. Several houses had recently gone back on the market in our neighborhood shortly before Miss Piggy appeared. We believe someone moved away and abandoned her.

Now Lea and I are leaving the country for ten months and can’t take her with us. Leaving Piggy behind is the saddest part of the whole deal.

The good news is that we’ve found friends to take care of her, and we do want her back when we return. It’s hard, though, knowing that she’s going to be unhappy. She doesn’t understand what’s going on, and having been abandoned once before we hope she doesn’t feel like it’s happening all over again. It’s unclear how much animals actually remember of past trauma, but any pet owner will tell you that they do retain something.

We’ve left Piggy’s carers detailed instructions on all her little quirks (how she likes her food, how she likes her litter, etc.). We hope she adjusts quickly to her new situation and doesn’t spend all her hours hiding from her new humans. Most of all, we hope she remembers us when we get back.

With this career break, I admit that a big motivating factor is to leave behind the non-stop, high pressure world of American working culture. There is so much emotional baggage wrapped up in surviving day to day, even for those of us in the “comfortable” middle class, that we desperately want to escape from, and we can’t wait to find out what it’s like to be free from the constant daily nightmare of alarm clocks, crushing commutes, hair-on-fire deadlines, and demanding, demanding, demanding customers. (I know: First World Problems. Send me a meme.)

However, there’s a lot in our lives that we love and it’s hard to let go. For weeks, it’s seemed as if every single day was the last day I was going to see at least one person. Some will be here when we return, but some won’t. We’ve made a lot of friends over the last two years in Atlanta, and we love the city itself.

I haven’t felt this way about every place that I’ve lived. There were some that I couldn’t wait to leave. Here, though, Lea and I feel that we’ve finally found our place. For me, there are people here I can hang with, game with, go to movies with, make music with. Here I can go to DragonCon every single year and not have to pay $300 per night for a hotel room! (Incidentally, we’re leaving before the Con and they’ve booked Peter Capaldi as a guest. AAARGH!) I know, more First World Problems. Sue me.

So, if Atlanta’s so great, why not just stay and find new jobs? Because now is the time. Because we’re not getting younger or healthier, and if we wait too long to live what we dream then it will only be a regret instead of an actuality.

Believe me, once we set all the gears moving to get us out of the country, we discovered that the pressure not to go is enormous, from society in general and our own inner expectations. We’re both overproductive people, so we feel like we’re the kid who makes all A’s who suddenly wants to drop out of school.

Funny story: I was that kid, and I did that too. In 1993 I dropped out grad school. I wasn’t prepared for the emotional fallout of ditching the path I was on and forging something new, but in retrospect it was one of the best decisions I ever made, and maybe the first real one I ever made for myself.

Here I am, twenty-five years later, about to do it again. This time I’ve got my game face on, I’ve got my partner in crime and love of my life with me, and we’ve got a battle plan for what comes next.

But we’re really going to miss Miss Piggy.

The Secret Untold Truth of The Escape Hatch – Now Revealed!

Buenos diás, compadres!

When I started this blog back in April, I talked about how my wife Lea and I are frequent world travelers and that I was going to use this space to chronicle our adventures and why hadn’t I been doing that all along. I also implied that along the way we might learn a little bit more about ourselves and the world and wouldn’t it be swell to share all that with the reading public, because who just wants to look at a bunch of pretty pictures of places someone else has vacationed, am I right?

Well… All of that is true, but it’s not the whole story. The whole story, which couldn’t be revealed publicly until now is… (drum roll, please)…

I done quit my job. As of July 14, I will no longer be your friendly, neighborhood librarian. Lea and I are taking a long-needed career break. On August 1, she and I will fly to South America and not come back for at least ten months.

The plan is thus: We land in Quito, then fly to the Galapagos for an actual “vacation” before our serious traveling commences. Once back on the mainland, we’re going to take two weeks of Spanish-immersion classes (Lea at Intermediate level, myself at “laughable beginner”). After that, we’re just going to head downhill in the general direction of Antarctica and see what happens.

Our itinerary is deliberately vague. We’ll travel by bus, stay in hostels, and couch-surf as much as we can. If we like a place, we’ll stay a while. If we don’t, we’ll move along. If we find we’re spending too much money, we’ll look for somewhere cheap and hole up. If we get fatigued and a little too dusty from all that backpacking, we may (on occasion) wimp out and book ourselves into a resort with trustworthy showers and air conditioning for a day or two.

We’re planning an average of about six weeks per country, going from Ecuador to Peru, a quick dash through Bolivia to see the salt flats, moseying down a good stretch of Chile, flying to Tierra del Fuego sometime around December, then back up through Argentina, Uruguay, maaaaybe Paraguay, Brazil, and finally flying across to Columbia before coming home. Or going somewhere else.

FAQ:

Are you both out of your goddamn minds?

Why, yes. Yes we are. If you’re a working American with a relentless, 40-60 hour a week job that barely lets you sleep at night, you probably are too.

The truth is, we’ve been planning something like this for a long time. Originally we were to have left two years ago, but life happened. Life always happens. Eventually you have to tell Life, “Back off. I’m doing what I want.” Life replies, “Oh yeah? Bet I can stop you.” To which the appropriate response is “Bring it, jerk.”

But seriously, you’re quitting work for a year?

That’s not all we’re quitting. We’re not going to have a fixed address. We’re not going to have a car. We’re not going to have a TV. We’re not going to have a cat. We’re not going to be around people who speak our own language.

We’re not going to have employers or customers making demands on our time and our energy. We’re not going to have a schedule to follow except what we impose on ourselves. We’re not going to have any choice but to immerse ourselves in another world. At the same time, we’re not going to have anyone to stop us from heading to that beach, or hiking into that jungle, or taking a gondola up that mountain whenever we damn well want.

(You’ll note that I didn’t say climb that mountain. We’re not completely crazy.)

Basically, the time has come for us to do a hard reset – a CTRL-ALT-DELETE if you will – on our lives. Whatever happens, we’re going to be different people at the end of this. With planning, luck, and determination, we hope to come back refreshed, in better shape, and with a whole new point of view on the world.

Assuming, of course, we decide to come back at all.

Stay tuned, dear readers.