"When" not "If"

We've gotten to the stage in our trip planning where we're saying "when we go" and no longer "if we go". It's making it more real, easier to get excited - and forcing me to knuckle down to the nuts & bolts planning.

We have a timetable to work to, and only so much cash available, so in reality we're doing day-to-day things to get ready for our adventure. We can't just go out and blow the salary on this and that - each month a bit is put aside for one item or another. Today we start stocking the medical equipment container! (A good thing to have around, travel or not...)

But there's a downside to this too. I just want to get out of here and DO it already! :) Sitting at work, dealing with folk who give me hassles - and waking up at 3 in the morning when the neighbours upstairs come home, clomp around and slam doors - is getting me irritable. I've never really fitted in, in all the 9 years I've worked here. It's worse than ever with an "escape route" planned - now I simply don't WANT to fit in! And as for the humdrum of work and a desk job, while the sun shines and the birds pass the window and all is good out in creation - it's a mission to keep myself doing what I'm paid for.

However, the pay is what's enabling me to get where I want to go, so I truly DO have to stick it out and make the best of it.

There are still times when I find myself saying "if" and not "when" - usually when the prospect of walking a very different path to what society, my family and my friends expect gets to me. I wonder what I'm thinking sometimes! But the "when's" are coming more frequently and they're keeping me on track with this dream. Eyes front and centre, fixed on the goal ahead - that's the way to do it.