In the next couple of posts, we’ll wrap up our African Adventure. But it’s been a year since we first took off for our round the world trip, so I wanted to offer up a few words on leaving…

Us last April, so young, innocent and apparently slightly pissed-off looking.
A year ago, we got on a plane at JFK airport in New York and woke up in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Nellu and I barely talked the whole flight. We were both still carrying the stress of the last week (and months really) — moving out of our apartment on Thursday, quitting our jobs on Friday and packing up everything so we could be on that Sunday night flight. Monday morning in Brazil, on a bad night’s sleep, we tried to follow the detailed directions to get from the airport to our host’s downtown apartment, communicating in broken English sprinkled with “obrigado,” the Portuguese word for thank you. This would be our new reality.
Now we’ve been gone for what seems like such a long time, our friends have started to ask if we’re ever coming home. We are, probably in June. But with a month at home last July and the extra month we needed here at the end to see family, friends, and a little bit more of Europe, we’ll have 14 months of distance from our old lives by the time we get back.

Embracing my inner hobo in Kyoto. Photo by Nellu.
The biggest lesson I’ve learned from all this time on the road: the importance of stepping outside the institutions we live in – or more simply – the importance of leaving. It’s so easy to think that our world is the whole world. We give undue attention to minor bumps (it’s the end of the world). We miss opportunities because we’re so singularly focused (or perhaps so generally distracted) that we’ve got our blindsiders on. We fail to question all the little assumptions we make every day about the way we live because when everything works as well as it does in our modern society (and so cheaply), we have no reason to think differently.
I’m still dumbfounded that the only time we’ve used a clothes dryer in the last year was during our month at home. I also can’t tell you the number of times we’ve bought milk in bags or paid more than $5 for a gallon of gas.
We don’t have jobs when we get home. We’ll be summering in Connecticut (my favorite euphemism for living with my parents) until we get our acts together. I am not exactly sure what we’ll do but I’m hoping to find a middle ground between this life and our old one.
~ Molly
7 comments
Comments feed for this article
April 3, 2012 at 22:51
Fred Sell
Molly and Nellu,
We are very much looking forward to your “summering” with us in CT and hearing the details of your wonderful adventure and the valuable insights you have come by!
Love, Dad
April 4, 2012 at 03:25
Molly
Thanks Dad! See you soon.
April 6, 2012 at 09:38
Robert
very inspiring and enlightened words of wisdom
April 10, 2012 at 04:13
Molly
Thank you!
April 19, 2012 at 15:05
Wendy
So true. Life is too short. I hope you both “figure it out” and then let me know ;-) Philadelphia would always love to have you. A bit slower than the big NYC.
April 19, 2012 at 17:59
Molly
We’ll be there soon for at least a visit!
February 26, 2013 at 12:31
8 Life Lessons I Learned From Traveling | Life Offtrack
[…] On our year anniversary of traveling, I wrote the following line: […]