Many of my fellow ADVriders’s have followed my Journey of losing my wife to early onset Alzheimer’s Disease. I will not recap any of this here, but if you are interested you can find the thread, or PM me.
Decided to start a new thread(s) as I am now on a new chapter of my life. The old life has passed away, and I am doing my best to embrace my life as it is. And as I have tried to live my life …. My signature sort of sums it up.
In the past months I have grieved the loss of my lovely wife Chris. But really the grieved started years before. I have had time to do the hard work of coming to acceptance of this loss in my life. It is still hard, painful and of course I wish I could have grown old with her. But it is not to be, so I need to start this new life. Part of it is scary, unknown, and part is exciting. Personally I have never let the emotions of being afraid stop me from my life.
With this little bit said, I am in the process of “living my dreams”. Actually it is all happening fairly quickly…….. But coming together in amazing ways.
Basically I have dreamed about riding around the world on a bike(s) …. So I am doing it!
As I continued to reflect on a meeting I had with a really good friend, last year…. “if you could do anything you wanted in your life what would it be?”
Huh……. Still had all the responsibility with My wife Chris…..But I am now at a place that I do not. My step Son is now 24 and struggling to grow up, but other that that, I am now in a place in my life that I have to take care of myself.
Life is simple (in ways that it never has been before). So I have been pondering this question, thinking about me dreams.
I could play it safe. Work, settle down, and build toward retirement. In the end life is short. I am now 48 years old, and personally seen the loss. But I am healthy, active, interested. dreams….. Mine has been building for years. So maybe I will wait until next year. Give things time. But I kept coming back to “WHY?”. There would be so much to do to get my house cleared out so that I could lease it out (not a great time to sell). The idea of going through all Our belongs, and putting things in storage ….emotional. Wow.
As I am pondering this ……. Things start to happen. “WHY NOT?”…. So a couple weeks ago I am at dinner with friends…. Casual conversation that there Son who grew up with my son is needing a place to move to as the house they were renting got foreclosed on and they need to be out in a month. Any other time in the last few years, and dinner would have carried on without another thought. Humm…. Young guys needing a place to move to fairly quickly…. So I wake up a few times during the night…..
I call them the next day. They come over…. Bottom line is they are moving into my house and will lease it. I can leave major furniture and just clear out personal stuff.
OK…. Now I have to quit me job…. feel a bit bad as they have been good to me since I start last year. But “WHY NOT NOW?” what will 6-10 months matter. Ok emailed the CEO and my boss. Title of email “Living a Dream”. The reply from the CEO was ….. Awesome. of course he admitted later that he had the “Ahh Shit” when he saw my email, but then embraced the Dream for me. Here is his email reply.
Have it on my work email. will post tomorrow.
Sorry for All the words…. I promise lots of photos and videos in my ride report.
So the Adventure Begins…….
House leased out, Job Quit with couple months notice. Scrambling to get all my affairs in order….
Will be leaving my House in June…. Planning rides around the USA and Canada for the summer including as many ADV events as I can add in, and then starting south toward the Tierra del Fuego.
It is all developing…. am Planning to get to Africa, India, China….. and ?
At this point I think it will be 1-1.5 years if I can make my money last
