Yesterday marked two important milestones – our nine month anniversary and our trip being 75 percent complete. I chose to focus on the anniversary because it's more romantic and fun. The idea of being down to only three months left of the trip made us both a little sad.
It shouldn't, though. We have been very blessed with the gift of time passing slowly. To our great amazement, we have felt every part of this experience. It hasn't rushed by us. It hasn't been a blur. Although sometimes the days seem to go by quickly, when we look back, it doesn't feel like time has slipped through our fingers.
Thailand, for example, seems so very long ago even though we were there last month. Nepal feels so distant, although we were there in November and the beginning of our trip in Alanya, Turkey feels like a lifetime ago.
We have savored every moment and everything we've done.
This journey is a gift we have given ourselves – along with the special help of our families, friends and especially the friends who have taken in our dogs – and we have made the most of it.
Each place, each experience and each moment has added to our lives. We have spent these past nine months creating memories we'll enjoy for the rest of our lives.
Just as fantastically, Emily and I have learned so much – individually and as a couple. We tend not to emphasize it, but it takes some skill to make careers and jobs on the road work. We have to budget our time and adapt to technological challenges and differences in each place we travel. There are always little problems and glitches to solve.
At first, they were stressful – particularly to Emily who doesn't have much patience for technological problems and who was very anxious about it at first. Then it was particularly stressful to me because I become particularly stressed and anxious when Emily becomes particularly stressed and anxious.
At the beginning, it was on my shoulders to be the technical problem solver. Over time, Emily has become more adept and relaxed and we have systems and methods for managing the inevitable problems.
Emily has become masterful at working abroad and on the move. She has incredible organizational skills and multitasks so well that she gets amazing reviews from students – sometimes in the 99th percentile, well above her faculty peers. No one knows she's trying to answer their questions and grade their papers as quickly as possible so she can get out to the beach, a massage or a flight from Istanbul to Delhi.
We have both learned to be flexible. Sometimes things take longer than we'd like. Sometimes it's not easy to get our work done on the timeline we had imagined. We work early, at night or on the weekend to make up from unavoidable changes to our schedules. We have become highly adaptable and much more resourceful than we started.
Environment matters. We face this lesson again and again. Here in Bali despite the occasional technical glitch, we're relaxed. We get up early, we work happily and our lives sail along with the smoothness of the Balinese breeze. In the relative scheme of things, Bali is developed – at least sufficiently for our needs. We want for nothing except the people we love.
On the dark, cold nights of Kathmandu when power outages and communications systems failures were as plentiful as trash on the ground – things were hard. We were edgy and tense. Life was hard for us, but much harder on Nepalis.
Similarly, the cold, gray mornings of Istanbul in October made it hard to get out of bed and we were in no hurry to get out the hotel door. Yet we enjoyed Istanbul completely and technologically, it was one of our best stops.
I know already that Singapore, our next destination, will not be as relaxed and nurturing as Bali. In fact, I expect to be mourning Bali. At the same time, I believe we will do well in Singapore. With its mind boggling social and political construction and its fantastic infrastructure and resources – it's the kind of environment in which we do well. If Singapore is anything, it's easy.
More than the tricks of working, traveling and discovering how places affect us, Emily and I continue to discover each other. Sometimes issues arise. There are many times we have to stop and listen to one another. There are moments we come to learn what the other really needs and what isn't important. Not only do we deal with the typical issues that married couples face as they tackle life together, but we are with each other constantly – in a way very few people ever are.
We try to maintain ourselves and each being independent, healthy individuals – and at the same time, we invest a lot into being a strong team.
If the past nine months have taught me anything, it's that Emily and I really are able to work together through whatever life brings. We have an unwavering commitment to making decisions and taking actions that work for both of us. Sometimes it's difficult to figure out what those actions and choices are – but we're each only happy when we're both happy. That's why we never lose sight of our goal.
The skill that has taken the most developing is learning to help each other see things differently. We're both intelligent, headstrong, opinionated people. This makes us challenging. We're also people who like to learn and hate the idea of being obtuse or shortsighted, especially when it comes to how we impact others. This is where we find opportunities to succeed. Throughout this trip, we have had to learn how to change each other's perceptions – how to enlighten one another and how to break through the paradigms and viewpoints that don't always work to our advantages. We each have our tricks to helping the other take a new view. But the key is that we help the other. We try to build each other up, push each other forward and make one another aware. It's not always easy – but I believe we are successful.
We know that we always have each other's interests at heart. We can always trust one another. We're on the same team. Most importantly, we don't hate each other. On a long trip, that's really important.
I can't say why, but marriage is different than living together. A year of travel is definitely different than living together.
In three months, we'll have to take all the things we've learned, about ourselves and each other, and apply them to the world from whence we came. It's the hero's journey – and it's one we've each made on our own before. Now we're doing it together.
In some ways, this trip has been a huge boon for our marriage. We have every opportunity to focus on each other and go through situation after situation in which we learn how to work together and make each other happy.
When we get home, we'll have to learn to do the same thing in the face of our friends, family, dogs, schedules, more intense work lives, errands and the demands of Los Angeles life.
I venture to say we've built the skills to do it with ease. After all, if you can talk your way into one of the few hotels in Kathmandu with a generator and 1Mbps Internet connection, make friends with most of the vendors in your neighborhood in Bangkok, navigate the roads of Bali and successfully visit and leave a cult ashram in India – then you have most of the skills you need to survive in Los Angeles.
Of course, we have three more months and even more countries in which we can learn a few new tricks. I know we'll savor every moment – abroad, with each other and for the rest of our lives.
Sent from my iPad
