4-26-2017 By Kara

"Four, twenty-six seventeen" Like Dorothy clicking her heals to get home, I repeat my chant hoping that my mind will take me to a better place then the present stressful rat race.  April 26^th, 2017 is our target date to leave our current life behind, to transform and to explore the world.  

“I can put up with just about anything for 18 months if I know it will all change”, I think as I receive another elbow jab from my fellow airplane passenger while on the way home from everlasting work travel.   I’m not quite sure what happened, my career used to be important to me; it used to be fulfilling.  I was excited to help my customers solve a challenge or to ‘own the room’ with a 500 person audience.   Maybe it was process or lack of resources, but something killed my motivation.   Perhaps, it was when I took a step back, looked at the bigger picture of life and asked, “I am alive, but am I really living?”

My old soccer coach was diagnosed with ovarian cancer a few weeks ago and is under going Chemotherapy.  She was fit and lived a healthy lifestyle, but is still staring death in the face.   My dad died of cancer before 60 and I have numerous relatives and in-laws that either succumbed to health issues before their time or have trouble doing everyday tasks because of their declining health.  I am often reminded that you are only guaranteed this moment; the next might not happen.  Life is too short not to live out your dreams so we are going sailing and are untying the lines in April of 2017.

What’s the significance of 4/2017?   Our original goal was to retire early and go sail.   We could possibly leave in 5 years and 2020 sounded like a nice round, safe number to shoot for if we had to put a number on it.  The more that we researched the more we kept hearing “Go small, Go cheap, Go now!”  Not a single item we read made us think that we needed to wait longer or that cruising was a bad decision.  Advice from our cruising friends that are in mid-circumnavigation was to put a specific day month year on our plan to leave.  After careful consideration on Vela’s necessary improvements, the best time of year to sail through the gulf, and personal preparations (house / condo / family) we decided on 4/2017.  The 26^th just happened to be a random date in the last week of the month and we aren’t necessarily set on that date, but it gives us a day to shoot and plan for.

Yes some parts of this will be difficult, yes there is real work involved, yes we are not nearly prepared, yes I’m nervous yet excited, but also yes, we can do this!  As Walt Disney stated  “The way to get started is to quit talking and get doing” and thus I am going to stop typing and get doing.