The final countdown

It seems unreal to me that Cam and I will be putting Chicago in our rearview in just a couple short days. Through the many conversations and even more YouTube videos, we have reached the final countdown of exactly four days. Scary. Yet wildly exhilarating.

To give some background, close to 3 years ago, my boyfriend, Camilo (Cam) and I were nursing gnarly hangovers after a New Years Eve party filled with cheap champagne. Laying in the dark we turned on YouTube and eventually algorithmed our way into van life videos. Cam was instantly enthralled with the idea of doing something like this, myself, not so much. While I love adventure, it's typically more tame in it's flavor. Something like going to Italy and staying in a hostel for two weeks or going overnight camping for a night. What we were talking about was leaving behind everything and hitting the road for the longest period of time I've ever been away from the Chicagoland area, for a full year. Yikes. It wasn't so much the idea, more the length of time and planning commitment we would be making that frightened me.

Obviously I was convinced otherwise because here we are, one large truck and pop top camper later. The ultimate plan was and continues to be: take a year off of work and together, travel Mexico and the US. 

Over the months of planning, I have gone through ups and downs on my level of enthusiasm. Was I just holding on to a commitment I made in the throws of hangxiety? Or did I actually want this too? Did I really want to leave my family, friends and career for a year? And while not always consistent, the answer remains yes. 

Yes I want to see parts of the US and Mexico that I have not seen, yes I want to explore my personal goals and hobbies again and yes I want to spend a year of my life in close quarters with my best friend, even if he does leave dishes in the sink 😉. When I put it like that and ignored the grumpy, fear-driven part of my brain, then the choice became easy (not necessarily the planning/execution I will say). 

So again, here we are. Four days away from leaving Chicagoland and beginning the adventure that has taken close to three years to pull together. Stay tuned!