“The interesting thing about adulthood,” Sean said over dinner a couple of weeks ago, “is that it’s been made up really distinct chapters so far.”
Chapter 1, pages 18-22: College
Chapter 2, pages 23-26: Dallas
Chapter 3, pages 27-32: Boston
“Each one has had the perfect ending,” he continued. “We didn’t hang around College Station after graduation, clinging to the glory days; we didn’t settle down back home in the ‘burbs when we were still young and adventurous; and we aren’t going to wear out our welcome in New England.”
It’s been a minute since I’ve really sunk my teeth into a writing project, but if memory (and a 10-year-old English degree) serves, we’re pretty much nailing one of the core principles of storytelling: knowing how to advance the plot. If you keep a chapter going interminably, without introducing any new action or characters, it stops being interesting. Wrap it up when there’s still a spark left, and you compel the reader to turn the page.
The past five years in Boston have been packed with action. Sean got his Master’s and worked in Germany. I got paid to write about Antarctica, Egypt, and Rwanda; found my voice professionally; and learned how to lead. We both won awards at work and took a few steps up the corporate ladder. We survived the snowiest winter on record and cheered the Red Sox to a World Series win. We’ve traveled extensively throughout New England, and we’ve explored 19 countries together and independently.
And the characters—oh, the characters! The people we’ve met here have broadened our horizons and supported us in ways we never could’ve anticipated. We’ve had meaningful conversations; celebrated marriages and babies, book publications and new jobs; and laughed until we cried. In an era when it’s tough to make adult friends, we’ve amassed a gaggle of them.
But we’re starting to reach the denouement. We’re no longer comfortable with the exorbitant cost of living, and we’re both ready for new professional experiences. We loved Boston for a very long time, and we want to bring this chapter to a close before we get tired of it.
Chapter 4, pages 33-34: The World
If five years in the travel industry have taught me anything, it’s this: The world is an absolutely incredible place, and the most unforgettable experiences typically don’t cost that much. Getting a spontaneous hug from a gregarious German grandmother in Dresden; sharing pints of Smithwicks with an Irishman in Cobh; discussing capitalism and dancing with Cubans in Havana; smoking shisha with Egyptians in a shack outside the Valley of the Kings—these things have stuck with me more than any castle visit or city tour. With that in mind, we’ve decided to throw off the bowlines and spend the next year adrift abroad.
We have a small-but-comfortable amount of money saved, a couple of new suitcases that should fit into even the tiniest overhead bins, and a general idea of countries we’d like to explore. But beyond that? We’ll just have to see how the story unfolds.
What’s the first thing you think of when I say Colombia? Cocaine? Pablo Escobar? Narcos? FARC? Terrorism? That’s fair. But what if I told you everything you thought you knew about the country is wrong?