The Prologue: Leave Taking

So this is mostly Al seeing if he can figure out how this thing works. The pictures have nothing to do with anything, other than to see if I can figure out how it all works. Jen and I will both be posting here as time goes on, but I'm hoping I can figure this out before we're playing hunt-and-peck on a Korean keyboard.

To be honest, I'm all over the place. I swing wildly from being absolutely terrified by the whole idea to being beyond ready to get the hell out of here to getting this overwhelming feeling of wanderlust that I haven't felt since before I left for Canada. Here's hoping I last longer in South Korea.

At this point we're just wrapping things up on this side of the planet. Here's a few things I've deduced for any of you who may be considering doing some globetrotting of your own:

• You don't actually own your time. It belongs to all of the wonderful folks who love you, and will miss you, and will hurt you if they don't get enough time with you before you leave.
  
• 5 grown adults, plus a dog, is just about the maximum occupancy for a 3 bedroom house. It may actually be over the max if the stay is much longer than a month.
• On a completely unrelated note, my shoes no longer go right next to the front door.
  

One oddly refreshing part of this endeavor was getting rid of all our stuff. Jen and I, until very recently, were living in a very nice 2 bedroom apartment. It had about 1200 square feet of our stuff in it. Now everything we own is in a small bedroom, with some overflow occupying half of a 5X5 storage unit. As I threw out over 25 full sized trash bags (we're talking the 30 gallon bad boys) of our stuff, not to mention what was sold or given away, it was oddly refreshing. It really made me stop and think about why I had what I had. I was really shocked at just how much of what I had taking up space in my apartment was just crap. Not literally though. That'd be disgusting. Not to mention almost certainly against the apartment complex's policies.

In other news, saying good bye sucks. Jen and I wrapped things up with the kids this past Sunday, and I said my final good byes to the majority of my co-workers today. There's a small pool forming on when I'll finally break down and cry like a 5 year old girl. My bet is in about a month after not being able to find a real can of Coke, I think Eli called three weeks and unable to find a pizza. Though to be fair, I'm pretty sure I'd cry over a lack of pizza for three weeks even if I was still in Orlando. My mom called 3 weeks as well, but she's betting it'll be a result of craving something from home. Jen said something about a pipe to the crotch. I don't know, I should listen better.

Speaking of the brains... and good looks... of this duo, I have to confess something. I really wish I could be as strong as she is. She's been having a tough time with this every now and then, granted. Sometimes she gets upset because we don't have our airfare info and we're just over a week out. Or because I still hadn't turned off the power to the apartment a week and a half after we moved out. Ya know, like girls do. Anyhoo, the point is that through this all I just kinda force the part of me that's screaming in terror to the back of my head with all the other voices. I mean, why should it get special treatment? But not Jen. Jen's staring this thing right in the eyes and still moving forward. I just don't know if I could do that at this point. So there.

Welp, that'll wrap it up for me. I promise, this thing will be better later.

Who am I kidding? This is probably as good as it gets.