One Life Ends and Another Begins

“To live will be an awfully big adventure.”
― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

On August 14, 2015, one chapter of my life will close in Los Angeles, CA, and another will open halfway across the world in Manila. I’ll step off my plane after fifteen and a half hours of non-stop flying with nothing but my passport, some cash and the few remnants of my former life from the States that will fit into two Samsonite Spinners on wheels, and I won’t be coming home.

How did this happen?

The short explanation is that I fell in love. Love is a curious thing. It makes us do things we would never do on our own. It makes us bold. For love, we’ll conquer the world. We’ll go anywhere, do anything, give up everything we have, whatever it takes to be with our beloved. For this woman, uprooting my thirty-one-year-old life in the States came as naturally as breathing.

I’m excited.

I’m about to undertake an extraordinary journey, shared by someone special. The Philippines is a beautiful country, filled with natural wonders and unique cultural marvels that can be found nowhere else. My girlfriend and I both enjoy traveling, so the adventure won’t stop there; together, we’ll take on the world.

I’m scared.

Just because I’ve decided to plunge head-first into the deep end doesn’t mean I’m not afraid. I’ve never done anything like this before. What if I lose my job? There are very few Stateside employers who are willing to hire remote web developers. What if something happens to me in the city? What if I’m robbed? What if I get lost? What if I’m trapped in a serious natural disaster, like a major earthquake or typhoon?

As a sufferer of anxiety, I always used to play it safe. Until recently, the very notion of being suspended in the air above the ocean for fifteen or more hours at a time would, for example, have been enough to drive me under the bed, cowering in fear.

But I’m tired of playing it safe. After dating my girlfriend for a while, with all the frustrations that long distance relationships inevitably bring, I knew I would have to do something extreme if our relationship was to have any hope of surviving. So I took a deep breath and I jumped. Life’s too short to play it safe. Sooner or later, we’re all going to die; it’s just a matter of when. We should make the best of the time we have and live our lives to the fullest, for not a single man or woman knows when Death will come knocking on their doorstep.

Life is an adventure.

Over time, reading and writing about everyday adventures changed my attitude. It turned the boring and the ordinary into something exciting and extraordinary. Once my outlook on life changed, so too did my desire to undertake adventures of the more exotic variety.

I have no idea what will happen when I arrive. But for good or for ill, I know that it will be an adventure.

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