Lately I’ve been hating my job. Yesterday I sat and stared at my computer wondering how with a Masters Degree I had ended up with a crappy call-centre job? Hell, when I was back in high school I wanted to be a sound engineer! But when I approached my mother with the idea she said flat out ‘No!’. Her idea? Come home (from boarding school) and get a job in the bank. Ugh! Studies in English and French instead. (My mother openly told people she and my father hoped I’d find a husband at university, someone to take me off their hands finally. She said this in front of me. I remember being surprised. Was I not capable of looking after myself? I hadn’t realised.)
As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I set off on my first travel adventure when I was three. I blame my sisters for reading and re-reading to me a book about a kitten that went off to see the world. At the age of three I clearly didn’t see a problem. If it was good enough for the kitten… The danger of books!
Now I feel a similar desire to flee. My next trip is planned for February but it’s only for two weeks then I’ll be back sitting in front of that computer feeling defeated. Why don’t I just take off? I can afford it. But there are those ties that bind: my husband, my sons, my ageing dog, even to a tiny extent my immortal chicken (Sylvia is 14 and still going strong!).
My husband is finishing up at his job soon and is planning on an Eat, Drink, Walk adventure on his own for a month. How stupid that until yesterday it had never occurred to me to do the same, minus the walking. (Do I still believe what my mother said?) Eat, Drink, Write but where? If only I could take dog and chicken with me. We could all set off to see the world.
A Journey to Lo Monthang 