Leap of Faith - One Polk's Dream..

 

I look into the mirror every morning and I see a tired man looking back at me. I am old at being young, but young at being old (to quote The Barenaked Ladies), but I feel every year sometimes. Life is rolling along at an ever increasing clip and as a blue collar guy who left high school and has worked in a variety of customer service jobs over the last 30 years, I don't have much in the way of plans for the future. Little savings from being self employed for 13 of those years and working for chains that don't offer retirement packages means I am most likely to work till I am well into my 70's or until I keel over at the grill one day. The prospect of another 30 years spent grinding out 50 hour work weeks with 2 off for good behaviour seems daunting at times as the entirety of my life will be spent working to just stay put. Not an appetizing thought by any means and I lack the self discipline or guts to trim my life to the basics so as to save and retire a bit earlier on a modest budget. But one day I had a thought, perhaps I could "retire" for a few years now while I can enjoy it and then toil away my remaining years with the wonderful memories I could create.
  How's that now, you ask yourself?
  Well, admittedly it isn't the smartest plan or the most stable but it is a dream to dream each night.
  We bought our house about 12 years ago, right before the market went ape-shit. Coming in at a very reasonable price, we looked at it as our forever home where we would raise our child (to come soon after) and enjoy the life we were building. A simple 2 bedroom home with a huge yard and room to grow, we hosted parties,a wedding and so much more before life got really complicated after I lost my business in 2012. The struggle to stay afloat was real but after a time, we found our footing and on we went. The real blow was when we found out that it wasn't in the cards for us to have kids, tough to swallow that one I will tell you, but once again, we refocused and strode on into the night with our sights on tomorrow.
  But I did get tired of it all some days. I looked at a future where we just keep doing the same things, day in and day out, a fait acompli until I take my leave of this mortal coil and no longer care. This cannot be all there is and one day, a mad plan, a decidedly crazy and unabashedly irresponsible plan popped into my head when I was a few pints in.
  We sell the house.
  Travel the world for 2 or 3 years.
  Come back and resume our lives, but with the tales and memories to carry us to the end while we still can enjoy them.
  Simply put, as madness usually thinks of itself, the profit from the sale of our house is going to exceed $300,000 and while we do have decent jobs, they are nothing we couldn't find again after a few years away. I don't have a career that needs saving, a life worth living should be lived well and hard. This is what I proposed one evening...
 We take half of what me make, maybe a little more and just go.  Leave with the wind at our backs and don't stop until we have to come back to ground and resume this life lived proper and true to what is expected.
We would head to Europe for a few months first, chasing beer dreams from Belgium to Germany and the Czech Republic. Drinking Belgian Trappist beers in taverns across from the monastery that produced them, sitting in a German Bierhaus during Oktoberfest and crushing Pilsner Urqhell on the patio in Pilsen would no longer be a dream and without a rigid travel timeline, we would be free to explore at our own will.
  Returning across the Atlantic, we would embark on the most ambitious part of my "retirement" plan; Polkapolooza : North America. Buying a truck and a trailer, we would start our journey in Newfoundland, exploring the local craft beer and food scene in every province and territory in Canada as we travelled across this great land. Timing stops for cultural events that pique our interest, we would search out experiences that will give us the memories promised but left unfilled in an uncertain future. Perhaps a year or so spent driving and stopping in to visit anywhere we fancy before we turn south and visit our friends and neighbours in the United States to do more of the same.
  Rather than looking for a reason or a purpose, we will simply go where the wind takes us and live the life that we cannot expect as our years advance. There will be no lazy senior days for this guy and this rather wacky and wholly un-thought out plan remains a dream that tantalizes my soul when the days get dark and the future a muddled mess of repetitive convention. Is it idiocy or madness that drives me to contemplate taking a risk and just letting go of all the routine and "correct" things we are supposed to do? Sure, a little of both but I do know one thing for sure, I was not born to just work until I die and pay bills.
  There you have it. The flights of fancy of a middle aged dreamer who will head back to work tomorrow with a little glimmer of what may be, even if that's all he has to keep him going.

Cheers!

Polk