So I've been freaking out a little bit lately. I went to Bob for solace. "I'm freaking out" I said.
"Good!" he said "Now I can stop for a while and let you take over." Sigh...
We're leaving sometime between May and July. We've started selling things on Ebay and Craig's list. We've donated hundreds of books to the library, and carloads of clothing to Goodwill. We're having a Cocktail Tag Sale in a few weeks. That should be fun: have a party - sell your life. I jest, truly. I really am fine so far with the process of shedding my enormous, weighty skin of STUFF. I'm honestly not mourning couch or chair, painting or plant. Golf clubs, however, that was a bit hard. I never really played golf, but I had every intention to do so someday. I imagined myself a golfer. I even have a nifty vintage golf skirt with little birds putting appliqued on it! I took lessons! Nonetheless -- they go with everything else.
The house is full of other unrealized ideas and unfinished projects hidden away in closets and corners. Now they have to be faced and dispensed with rather than left camouflaged in dust or darkness. So that's the stuff that's hard, not the couches. Although, I actually do have an ass and do use the couch to sit it on, so maybe I should mourn the couch a little.
The freak out is not about letting go of stuff. I'm looking forward to a suitcase (a rather large suitcase... or two) full of vintage summer frocks and one pair too many painted clogs, and a couple pelican cases full of sound and video equipment, and we're off to see the wizard.
"Well then - what seems to be the trouble, my dear?" For one thing - funding. MONEY!!!! We haven't talked too much about this subject here in the blog, (isn't it supposed to be impolite to discuss the M-word?) but we've been paddling like hell under water. Business plans, marketing plans, press kits, we've worked on them all. We've had meetings with friends who have connections and connections who have friends. We've had companies tell us they're "putting their heads together." (quote - not euphemism) We've gotten invites to prep pitches for upcoming meetings with the "Promised Land." We've gotten promising feedback on the website, and people reading from all over the world. (We've made $2.16 cents in Google Ads on this site since we launched at the beginning of the year!) It's all really heartening, and it makes me proud. Bob and I have created something that we're finding others relate to. HOW AWESOME IS THAT! That really was the point in the first place.
But still, at this moment, no one has said to us, "Let's work together."
The fact is, and has always been, that we're willing and planning to do this on our own. Another fact is that we're not wealthy people, and never have been. Bob and I shook hands on this journey July of last year. It was a different economic world than we know now. To take this trip was always a chance, but now, after the damage our investments have weathered in the past several months, it will be a huge roll of the dice. We've spent 20 years saving for our safe and financially comfortable retirement. A lot of that went up in smoke, just like the savings of many others -- probably you too. Do we gamble the rest on what has never been a lark, but instead an exceedingly complicated way of finding a new way of life for ourselves? Our 70 year-old selves are watching anxiously and sweating.
So... what to do? Go anyway of course. We shook on it. Go and keep working hard and thinking creatively and hope something will come through. Live and travel simply and frugally. Trust that one of the many irons in our varied fires will heat up. Part of the reason for this year away is to grow into other careers, creating jobs that utilize more of ourselves and our talents than the ones we have now. I feel like the universe is testing me. "How much faith in yourself do you really have, Brenna?" I honestly don't know. I have a lot of faith in the team of Brenna and Bob. I also know that if we just keep going, we'll end up somewhere close to the vision we have. Won't we?