There and back again

Two years ago Amy and I decided to leave our home and pursue a crazy idea. We believed we could take the reigns of our life and do things differently. We could choose to travel the world, take risks, and still make ends meet. So, we picked up what we could carry and moved from Austin, TX, to Prague, Czech Republic, determined to exercise our creativity and take on whatever adventures awaited.

And by golly, we did it. Since setting out on this journey, we’ve travelled to 11 different countries, tried countless new foods (and beers), and gone through more pairs of walking shoes than I’ve owned since leaving college. We’ve produced numerous video projects, written about our experiences, and become more serious about our craftsmanship. All the while we’ve created a nice little routine for ourselves, with new friends and favorite local haunts. We love our life in Prague.

And yet, the time to move on has arrived. It’s time to move back to Austin. And thinking about that ties my stomach in knots. I don’t know if I’m ready.

Ready or not, here we come. We’re flying back to Texas on October 13th, 2012.

We moved to Prague to find an exciting new base of operations. It was to be a constant reminder that we were choosing to treat life as an adventure. It sounds short-sighted now, but I never realized Prague would become home.

I could not have predicted the experiences we’d have here, nor the new friends we’d meet. And I certainly didn’t expect that Prague would become my new safe haven. That being here could be less scary than the alternative. Leaving home is scary; going home is scarier.

It’s hard to fathom how moving back to my home of 10 years could feel so daunting. After all, Austin is filled with family and friends who all speak my native language and eat my native diet of BBQ and breakfast tacos. It’s a weird thought that such a familiar place would come to represent the next big unknown.

Deep down I hoped for a revelation to emerge from our travels. I wanted our move to be justified by some great discovery about ourselves or the world or our destiny that would then make everything click into place.

But that never came. If anything, I got the opposite – more questions, more opportunities, more potential for comedy or tragedy. Life is bigger and scarier and more unknown than ever.

So what do we do now? Do we get back to our old routine? Try to pick up where we left off? Do we treat this as a two year vacation; a “break” from real life that was fun while it lasted?

Nope. Not even possible. This is where the rubber meets the road, and this is why I’m scared of Austin. All that stuff about moving abroad and living adventurously – that was just the proof of concept. It was ridiculously easy in Prague, to be honest. Getting back to Austin is the true test of this whole experiment.

We have no plan after getting off the plane in Texas, but we have momentum. Life is full of possibilities, wherever we go.

So, here we go again. Hello, unknown.

 

 

One lonely comment

The questions, the opportunities, the potential: these *are* the great discovery.

Love you both.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

required
required