Revisiting the Ghosts of the Past

pre-script

Dear Adventurous Reader,

The last save date for this post was 17th March 2017. Two years has passed since I wrote this post, and much has happened. I feel it would be wrong of me to re-edit the following series of posts, revisiting our last tour of the United States; so I post it here for you to read.

It is an historical recollection at the time it was written, so you may have to mentally keep up with the words.

Enjoy what was...

Going Back

It has almost been a year since I stopped writing. The ghosts of previous articles started to haunt me. The sounds of an untold tales, wanting to be told, were gathering their voices.

We kept a travel-log when were in Canada. We wrote entries on our blog between work and the things we were doing. When it started to feel that we would have to head home, I stopped writing. I started to second guess my adventurous spirit. I started to allow the ghosts into my words.

Regret. Failure. Depression.

I had thought that we’d be able to spend some time living abroad. Life in foreign lands, finding work where we needed. Extend our stay. Adapt to what life would throw at us. But the longer it went on, the more I understood our lack of options.

As hope of a different life started to fade, the ghosts started to appear in my words.

I stopped writing.

Things Change

We have been home since June 2016. Returning on the smell of an oily rag. A little too close for comfort. Our savings depleted. No job prospects. And into the third winter in a row.

But we have some stories to tell. Our experiences in North America will live on is the stories we tell, and the memories we will recall. I don’t regret going, only coming home so soon - especially when the options were so vast at one point.

Since then we have settled in to the rhythm of life in Australia. We are close to welcoming the ninth member of our family (child number seven), and have been enjoying the summer weather and surfing at the beach. Life is going along fine.

Stories to Tell

I feel like there are some stories yet to tell. I have so many drafts that need polishing, words that I tried to craft while we were travelling, and never got finished. Haunted words that I still remember.

Crawdads in Louisiana. Sitting in New Mexico, watching the wild horses down near the lake. Overlooking the Grand Canyon, words forming of the magnificence. The panic attack in Mexico.

All these thoughts haunt me. Written while we were travelling. Attempted stories about an experience I will not have again. And they sit here, not for you to read. I feel like I should change that.

For, if these words haunt me, maybe they will help you understand that sometimes travel is about keeping things together long enough to get home.

You will have to excuse my writing, for I do not write with the sunniest of dispositions. This is not a happy travel blog, though there will be things that may make you happy. There is no ebook at the end, no guidance for travelling.

I do not profess to have answers about travelling with six children. We just started, made a bunch of mistakes, and got home.

I am grateful for the experience. I am grateful for the chance we took to spend 9 months with our family overseas. What follows are some stories from almost a year ago. Some photos we took, experiences we shared.

Life is for living. I am glad we chose to adventure for a while.