Taking a year off

A restaurant in St. Petersburg

Go head and challenge my rationalizations. This is where I am and this is how I got here. I mean, I think this is what was going through my head at the time. You work in a conversation school, you take vacations when the school is closed. Go to Thailand during Golden Week and visit the family over O-bon. I’ll cover you for your friend’s wedding and you’ll get me back - migraines, you know. 

But I wanted to check out Savonlinna in July and climb around Beng Mealea in December, so what’s to be done? Take a year off. It made sense to me. And I did it.

But why pay 12 months rent when I’d be away half the time? Can’t move out completely because I’d come back next year. Why not get, by which I mean buy, my own place? Sooner rather than later? It made sense to me but I didn’t do it.

I didn’t run out of time. Actually, I held out. My girlfriend’s parents’ friends had an excellent property. Crazy potential. We referred to it as the Dream House. The older generation had moved into an old folks home, the younger generation had moved…on. I could live there if I wanted but I couldn’t own it, couldn’t change it. I thought all I had to do was let them know I was interested and wait. I’m still waiting.

So…bad weather loused up the Savonlinna Opera Festival. All the hyperbole people lay on Angkor? It’s for real. Year off was amazing. I went back to work, I got married and moved into a larger apartment. Right along the river, near the art museum, bicycle path lined with cherry trees, but I already had one foot out the door.