I’ve said it before and I will say it again, if you had asked me a year ago what we would do when we retired, the reply would have been – travel. We have a history in this area.
In 1978 / 79 we lived in the USA. At another time I will give you the story of how this happened. I was a teacher then and we decided it would be fun to ‘do’ an exchange. After a stutter, when an exchange in Long Island didn’t materialize, we – my wife, 3 year old daughter and I – ended up the year after in Rockville, Maryland, just outside of Washington DC. I worked in a special school for children with behavior problems (I had been working in the same area in the UK but this was different – much harder. For the first time in my life – I was thirty by then – I struggled emotionally). It was a case of what’s that over there, yes, right over there on the horizon, oh, that’s my comfort zone. Socially we had a great time, but work was hard. The point of me telling you this is to say that that Christmas of 1978, my brother in law sent me a diary as a Christmas present. I started to write in it as a kind of therapy. It helped me sort things out, get stuff out of my head and I’ve written every day in a diary since. Through good times and bad, through challenges and achievements. Through life.
Sadly, I seem to have lost that first diary, which for an OCD person like me is incredibly annoying because it means I haven’t got the full set. It was big and red, A4 size not like the A5 size I’ve used ever since. How could I lose it? I have every one since and as a record of our travels – where we went and how it felt, they are revealing. I even wrote a book about life as a family in New Zealand and I have to say, it is quite scary. Was the grass greener? Well, in a country known for the greenness of its grass the answer was – definitely not. But that’s for another time, back to America.
The year itself was chock full of challenges, we were so young, so naive, so unprepared, I really have no idea (see above for lost diary) how we made it through the year. But we did.
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Loved your article. I post on this site as well. I grew up in Rockville, MD and was teaching HS English during your road trip. Just got a new puppy too and understand your dilemma. Happy writing and traveling!