The Beginning

It has taken a while to get to this point but the journey is finally about to begin. At 12:05am on January 1, 2010 I am getting on a plane with Mitra to do the traveling that we have both been dreaming about for years. Getting to this point was not easy and there were times that I questioned whether or not I was making the correct decision to quit my job in New York and travel around the world. As tough as it was to leave the comforts of a job that pays well, provides health insurance, the friends, family and of course the great city of New York I know that I am doing the right thing for myself.

I had found myself valuing the things I owned as a reflection of who I was and that is not what made me happy or what I wanted for myself. Over the past few years I had taken trips and my eyes had started to open and see the world in a different light. I no longer wanted to be a bystander and just let life happen “the way it’s supposed to”. I wanted to have a say in how my life played out I wanted it to be on my terms. Earlier this year Mitra and I both decided that it was now or never to pursue our shared dream of traveling the world. So we laid the groundwork of saving money, figuring out an exit plan and pretty much got rid of all of our worldly possessions (thanks Dad, Janis, Kristin, Ryan, Ali and Marcia for storing the rest). Finally on December 7^th I quit my job at Bloomberg after 9+ years and a few hours later was driving across country with Mitra. We discussed the drive and decided that if we could survive the 3 day 36 hour drive in a minivan packed to the rafters that we would be alright on the 6 month trip together. Luckily we made the drive without killing each other and we are now ready for the real adventure to begin.

Mitra and I will both be posting on this blog with our thoughts, adventures, challenges and joys that we find on this trip. I hope that you read this and you laugh, learn and are maybe inspired to step away from the norm and pursue your dreams.

Brian

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Two Roads Diverged… (Or – How we REALLY got here!)

Theme song for this post:

Desire by Ryan Adams

So I think to understand how two people (us) decide to abandon all stability, throw all caution to the wind, and leave all they know behind to find their fortune and make a life out in the great, wide world, you need to go back to where it really all began. That would be Robert Frost Intermediate in Fairfax, VA sometime around 1988 or ’89. I had heard of Brian – he was this uber cool, mystical creature that played soccer and got excused from school for months at a time because he had some sort of job. He was supposed to be in Mr. Andrukonis’s drama class the same period as me but was off doing something that we all imagined was very grown up and made him mysterious and the topic of many illustrious rumors in the way that only middle schoolers can do. I didn’t actually meet him until one day when my very best friend, Tracey Harrington, announced to me that she wanted me to meet her boyfriend – Brian. I, of course, crushed on him instantly and he probably didn’t even realize I existed…or so I thought.

After a torturous 8^th grade year (I was 4’11, had braces, and was called concave chest – not the makings of a junior high sweetheart), that summer my parents and I moved to Jakarta, Indonesia where I went to school for the next 3 years (and grew 5 inches, got my braces off and got boobs…kind of). I grew to adore the ex-pat way of life. So much so that when I was 14 I decided that it was my dream to one day move to Bali. I had traveled overseas with my family my entire life and imagined that I would always be taking some fabulous trip somewhere, but this was the first time that occurred to me that I could live out in the world and for the first time, it felt like there was somewhere I truly belonged. Granted, if you asked my mom, she would tell you that I was a pissy teenager who never stopped whining about my privileged ex-pat life and couldn’t WAIT to get back to the states which probably was true at the time, but I had no idea what a rude awakening I was in for and just how good I had it. We returned to our home in Fairfax, VA in the summer of 1993 and it was miserable!

I ended up having more culture shock moving back to the States then I ever did moving to Indonesia – no more maid, cook, driver, fabulous school that seemed more like a Club Med than an educational campus (I know – poor me!), no more constantly making new and interesting friends, and maybe most importantly, I had spent 3 years in a place where only 2 establishments in the entire country enforced a drinking age – the days of being able to walk into a grocery store and buy booze were gone, gone, gone! Everything for the next year until I went to college was going to be the same as it always was, at least that’s what I was afraid of – that everyone I had left behind in junior high was going to still see me and treat me as that tiny, awkward, not particularly special, geeky little girl that I was when I left. It seemed like the worst kind of hell to me and my plan was to just keep my head down and look at it as a year of doing time but my older brother suggested that to ease back into American life I should get a job at the mall working at the men’s clothing store he’d worked at the previous summer. I acquiesced figuring it would be a way to meet boys (as any red-blooded American teenage girl I was a little boy crazy at the time – and would be for a great while longer - but had yet had a boyfriend.) and it wasn’t too long after I started working at Structure at Tyson’s Corner that I would be reconnected with the boy who was to be my very first real boyfriend.

It was one of my first days there and a man I had been helping wanted a jacket that we didn’t have in his size so I called over to the store in another nearby mall, identified myself and asked if they had the jacket. The guy who answered went off in search of the coat and came back a few minutes later, took down all the information and just as I was about to hang up asked if I was the Mitra that had gone to Frost. I said “yes” and he said, “Hey, this is Brian Jay!” We started chatting and made a date to meet up at sometime and after that the details get blurry but we met and hit it off and were pretty much inseparable…for a while.

Now an important little sidebar here is that while in Indonesia – much to my parents’ dismay – I got my first tattoo. While Brian and I were dating, he decided he wanted to get his first tattoo. Being the expert that I was, I emphatically forbade him from just picking something off the wall of the tattoo parlor and ending up his whole life with something lame (like a Grateful Dead Bear…which he ended up getting for his 2^nd tattoo!) permanently adorning his skin so I spent my lunch hours in the library (since we didn’t have the same lunch period and I was happy to hide out from the world) searching through books of symbols that he might like. One day I found this book that on the very first page had a symbol of a sun that represented the god Mithras – from which my name was derived. I checked the book out and found him between periods, excited to show him the book and the symbol of my name. When we met up I started flipping through the book and before I could tell him anything about it, he stuck his finger at a page and said, “That’s it, that’s what I’m getting!” It was the Mithras symbol of course and when I told him what it was, that sealed the deal.

So on Election Day we set off to Winchester, Virginia where we wouldn’t be ID’d. I hadn’t planned on getting another tattoo, but Brian implored me to – the way I remember it was he was kind of scared of getting one and didn’t want to do it alone, but he’d probably tell you different. The night before I had designed a little gecko with designs in it that actually concealed Brian’s initials and I had decided to get it on my midriff just to the side of my belly button. All I can say in my defense on all accounts – the last minute decision to get it, the boyfriend’s initials, the placement of the tattoo – is I was young and dumb and thought it’d never stop being cool…I’d feel much differently about it not too long after I got it and even more so long after I got it.

We’d started dating a few weeks our senior year started and I broke up with Brian I think about a week before Christmas. He’ll tell you that I broke up with him to date an older, chain-smoking, ex-convict so I could piss my parents off. I’d tell you that I broke up with him because I thought he cheated on me with some slutty freshman cheerleader. The truth is, my reasons for breaking it off weren’t so cut and dry and I would spend the better part of the next decade loathing him. When we first broke up we tried to be friends but what was really going on was he was trying to win me back and I was just trying to be as mean to him as possible – you know, healthy teenage stuff. Eventually, he gave up and we stopped acknowledging each other pretty much all together. Graduation came and then we were off to college and each went our separate ways. For Brian, it was the beginning of the road that he would travel for many years which was becoming everything society expects you to become and do. For me, it was the beginning of something much darker and a lot more off the beaten path.

To keep this kind of short (which I promise you, it will be a miracle if my posts are ever short!) Brian went to college, had a pretty typical college experience, graduated in four years and went right into the work force and became a productive member of society. I went to my FIRST college right after high school and couldn’t have felt more confused and lost and feeling more out of place – at school or in life. I spent the three years after high school becoming severely anorexic, bulimic, alcoholic, and drug addicted. In that time, I started and left three colleges in flames and by the summer after college number 3, I was in such a state that people close to me were certain I was headed for death before my 21^st birthday. It was that summer that my parents, my brother and I went to a local popular restaurant for dinner and when our waiter came up to greet us, we were all surprised to see that it was Brian…but probably not as surprised as he was.

At the time I was living nearby with some friends (because by this time my parents had kicked me out and cut me off and were having as little to do with me as possible) and when I got home from dinner I called the restaurant and talked to Brian and invited him over. Again, we both have very different versions of what happened that night. This is the one time that I will admit that his account of that evening is probably way more accurate than mine considering that I was about to crash and burn. Apparently he called me the next day and a few times after that and I either never got the message or more likely just couldn’t deal with calling him back at the time so once again, our paths diverged and we went our separate ways. A few months after that – two weeks and two days after my 21^st birthday – through the help of a very ass-kicking addiction counselor and a twelve step program that I can’t name because it’s anonymous, I got clean and sober and have been ever since.

A year and a half later I left Virginia for San Francisco where I went to 2 more colleges (not including stand-up comedy school) and spent 3 years there still looking for love and my place in the world. After another failed relationship I decided to pull up stakes and finally fulfill my dream of traveling the world by myself so I packed up everything I could and headed to my parents’ in a small town in Colorado where they’d been living since I’d taken off to California. I spent the next 3 months working my butt off and saving up money and then took off to Europe for three months. When I got back, I had no money and no place else to go so I figured I’d stick around by my folks and finish up school. Life was business as usual for me for some time – school, work, falling in and out of love. Then in June of 2005, exactly 2 weeks apart, Brian and I both had major life happenings that – if you believe in anything cosmic or karmic or being destined – probably was the moment in each of our lives that sealed our fates and determined that we would be where we are now. Brian got married and I had my first miscarriage while dating a guy who had been my most serious relationship at that time.

Nine months later Brian’s marriage was pretty much over – if not legally, physically and emotionally - and I was starting a downward spiral into extreme rage, anger, and grief that I wouldn’t deal with for some time to come which started by totally annihilating the relationship that I was in but that was probably never meant to be anyway, but haunted me for years until I finally had a full on melt down in the spring of 2007 which – to say the least – got pretty ugly. However, it was also a turning point, I decided to reclaim myself so to speak and live the life I had always dreamed of living and start becoming the woman I had always yearned to become. (Sounds like the plot of some cheesy Lifetime movie of the week, I know. But that’s the way it happened!) I was determined to FINALLY finish college (after 14 years, 6 schools, and 5 majors spanning four states) and as a reward to myself for all of my hard work I decided to rent a flat in Nice, France for 3 months after having fallen in love with it on my trip back in ’03.

At this point I was DONE with men. (Famous last words!) I wanted to go on my trip and have it all to myself, all FOR myself and not have my body in France but my head and heart back in the states. My last semester in the spring of ’08 I was taking 16 credits, working out and in the best physical shape of my life, and working about 35-40 hours a week to save money for my trip. One night I was at work and leaning over a table to clear away some dishes when my shirt cinched up and one of the customers at the table commented on how much they liked my gecko tattoo on my stomach. I won’t tell you what REALLY went through my mind because Brian doesn’t want me to swear in this post, but it was something to the effect of how much I couldn’t stand the thought of Brian and I wished I had never gotten that stupid tattoo!!! (By the way – on my 5 year sobriety birthday, I ended up getting the Mithras tattoo on my right foot because I was so sure I’d NEVER see Brian again and after all, it was MY name!!!) Then I began wondering – fleetingly – whatever happened to that jerk, Brian. (To this day I’m still not sure what my animosity towards him was about but he was the one ex-boyfriend that I was sure I never wanted anything to do with again, even though I’ve managed to remain pretty good friends with many of my exes.)

Maybe a day or two later, I arrived home from work late at night and checked my e-mail to find a message that Brian had requested me as a friend on Facebook (yep, sounding more and more like a movie of the week by the minute!). We exchanged a few messages and then I finally just gave him my phone number. A few hours later the phone rang and what we both thought would be a 30 minute catch up conversation that would be it for maybe the next twenty years or so, turned into a 6 hour call. After that we were talking and e-mailing multiple times a day and by the next month I was flying out to New York to see Brian for the first time in eleven years. He came out to Colorado a few weeks after that for my graduation and four days later he returned to the city and I was off to France and we began a long distance international love affair. By this time, we’d pretty much decided that I’d move out to New York in the fall when I got back.

During my 3 month trip, I went to Prague for two weeks because I’d gotten a scholarship to a writing workshop and Brian flew out to see me for 48 hours. It wasn’t the first time we’d discussed our desire to travel, but it was the first time Brian seemed truly serious, he was even discussing the possibility of traveling the world without me which – of course – I wasn’t thrilled about. But at the time, the whole idea of taking off and traveling the world, leading a nomadic life though had been a long time dream for me was not appealing to me right then. I wanted to settle down a bit and find a home, find some stability, finally be a grown up and lay down some roots. I had been wandering and kind of without direction for such a long time that I was longing for a life a little more run of the mill and thought that I would get that in New York. But in all fairness, I did tell Brian that if he had to go and do it without me, he had my blessing and that I wanted it for him if that’s what he wanted.

In October of 2008 I moved to New York. A week later the economy went to hell and a week after that, I got sick. The rest of the year was spent with me going to doctors and not getting any answers and not feeling any better. By the beginning of the year I was determined to be healthy and I don’t know if it was just sheer force of will or what but I was able to rally for a few weeks and started feeling better and actually getting into a groove. At the end of January, I found out I was pregnant and that – of course – changed life as we know it. We were excited, but freaked out and our talks of extensive travel were put on hold, except for our trip to Bali in February that we’d been planning almost since we’d gotten together. We had a fabulous time in Bali and had wonderful talks about what our life was going to be like with a baby and actually started getting over the being freaked part and started really getting excited and even picking out names.

The day after we got home – a week shy of the end of my first trimester and us being able to start telling people the good news – I started spotting and went to the doctor. During the examination, they found an abnormality in the baby and the outcome looked grim. Basically, had the baby made it to birth it had a very high chance of extreme health problems and an extremely high likelihood of death in infancy so, with heavy hearts, we decided to terminate the pregnancy. After that, I got incredibly sick and got a horrible infection. Not to mention all the mental and emotional anguish I was going through AGAIN! I couldn’t understand why something I have always wanted so bad and for so long was taken from me a second time. Not being able to find work, being sick, and then losing another baby really pushed me to the edge and tested my faith. After that I think I was so worn down emotionally and physically that I never made a full recovery. It was months before I ever really got out of bed (actually I spent most of my time on the sofa watching reruns of America’s Next Top Model – as if I wasn’t already depressed enough!) and could rarely bring myself to leave the apartment.

I should add here that at the beginning of the year Brian announced to me that his good friend Andy from college was going to be getting married in Manila in January of oh-ten. When I was pregnant the plan was that Brian was going to go to the Philippines for three weeks and leave me and the baby back in New York. (I was not at all having that! I’ve always wanted to have little nomadic babies and was ready to pack up some Huggies and my bikini – well, maybe a one piece…I was optimistic that I’d be back in bikini shape 3 months after childbirth – and join in the party!) But as things turned out, it was just going to be the two of us. I should also mention here that Brian had known for quite some time that the MTA (they are putting a subway in on our street – and have been for the last 30 years or something – and were going to buy our building to tear it down.) was going to be kicking us out of our apartment, he just wasn’t sure exactly when. It sounds sad but the upshot of it is that we were going to be paid to be homeless. So with these few factors all coming together at the same time, we figured we’d stay a month instead of three weeks and do some more traveling, figuring we were going to be homeless anyway.

Then, 1 month turned into two, two turned into three and eventually three turned into six months of nothing but a backpack, the world, and each other, oh my! SO all of a sudden it became crunch time and though I wasn’t feeling physically stellar, I managed to get a shitty job waiting tables at a local sports bar and started making some scratch for our eminent world tour. My mind was recouping but my body was getting more broken down and just getting more pissed by the day. It got to the point where all I did was sleep and work because it was all I could manage – aside from the umpteen more doctors visits a week. My mom was coming to visit at the beginning of October – a year since I’d seen any of my family – and the week before she arrived I was a wreck once again and broke down on the phone with my mom who encouraged me to go see ANOTHER ear, nose, and throat doctor. Long story short (I guess that ship’s actually sailed) I went to a specialist to the tune of $2500 who actually tested me and found that I had bacteria in my ear for an undetermined amount of time. For a year I’d been telling doctor after doctor that my ear was hurting but they just kept telling me it was ok. She put me on an antibiotic and I was feeling better until my stomach (which had been bothering me for a year but the doctors didn’t seem too disturbed by) acted up and landed me in the hospital for four days one month before Brian was suppose to quit his job and we were suppose to pack our lives up and hit the road.

Needless to say, it was hell, a year of hell and feeling crazy and sick and emotional ups and downs. (I REALLY needed a vacation!!!) Somewhere in there though, Brian had gotten me to see that what was happening was really a blessing in disguise. We had the opportunity to make life what we wanted instead of letting it happen to us, and now we both really knew what we wanted – to see the world together and to live life as it as it comes, moment to moment and not just try to maintain the status quo so we could survive until retirement and then maybe enjoy ourselves then. We both knew we wanted to start living to take each opportunity as it comes and not have to say “no” to most of what life offers.

Okay – we are at LAX waiting to board the first leg of our flight, I just found out there’s absolutely no smoking inside the terminal, and Brian has been on my ass the past few hours to get this done! Brian would probably prefer that I never told you any of this, thinking that there’s no reason and nobody’s business and he doesn’t understand why I have to say in seven pages what he put into three paragraphs. And had I not procrastinated, I probably would’ve told a much different story (it would’ve been way longer and a lot funnier!) But there’s many levels to my madness…

It has been my experience that you never know what part of your experience might help someone else. There’s so much we don’t talk about in this life and suffer alone in silence. I’ve done suffering, it sucks! So if anything I can ever say – no matter how batshit crazy, raw or vulnerable it might be – can help someone, I’d rather say it than swallow it (I know Brian is making some perverted comment as he reads this!). I don’t believe in censoring. In all my life seeking, the one thing I’ve been most in search of is authenticity and finding my true voice, so that’s what you’re going to get. Also, I was hoping to illustrate a few things in this long, winding set up. One is that Brian and I came to the same place at the same time with the same dream by taking very different paths to get here. The point being that even when you think life is kicking you in the nuts repeatedly, you can’t ever stop dreaming big because it’s in the works, it’s on its way – never say never.

Most people hear what we’re doing and immediately say that they could never do something like what we’re doing. We’re not special, just two kids from Fairfax, VA who took some amazing and some not so wonderful steps to get where we are today – sitting in an airport with me freaking out about not smoking for the next 15 hours and Brian freaking out that I’m not going to get this done in time! We are two people that want more out of life than to just do what’s expected, but that doesn’t make us extraordinary. But we want to share our story in hopes that it may inspire some and I wanted to share THIS story because in the last year I’ve become really afraid of so many things – of life, of people, of my body, of the world and times that we are living – so much seems to have fallen apart all around me this past year but the one thing that has been constant is the one thing that for a time I thought I’d never want and that I’d never have – Brian.

As corny as it sounds, I need to tell this story to remember where we came from so I can have ever-growing hope and faith in where we are going. I’ve been afraid, very afraid this year, but Brian has helped me to remember that fear is something you can either act in spite of or because of. We’ve chosen to act in spite of it. I don’t know what the road ahead of us holds, but I know the road behind has paved the way for this amazing, much anticipated adventure to come to fruition and I’m grateful for every step and truly excited to see where it will lead.

-xoxoM