In a way it feels like we’re finally fulfilling our promises to each other, our commitment to our lives.

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(this is a stylistic choice I make to separate simultaneous trains of thought)

I keep thinking I’ll just tell our story clearly and plainly, but that’s just not the outlet I need right now. I promise I’ll get more specific and more concrete with my thoughts at some point, but for now I just need to make space in my brain and in my spirit but dumping my thoughts, and that’s what this channel is. Think of this as more of a journal. Consider it art or don’t, but somewhere between spoken word and poetry and expository and narrative is what you’ll find here and I don’t want you to feel like you always have to understand everything.

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Six years later, here we are, setting out to do the thing we always intended. Instead of choosing to dwell in the shame of wasting so much of our time (almost 100% of our life together), let’s just run forward with pursuit like we’re up against a clock.

And we are. You’re 40 now, and I’m turning 32. I don’t have any gray hair yet (which I am extremely proud of), and over the course of our time together, the kids and I have taken your hair from a speckled black to a glimmering black.

Of course, it hasn’t been a total waste of time. We have the most beautiful kids, and we have lived in 3 countries, and have built so much skill in our interpersonal relationship. I want to say it’s been a waste of life, but it hasn’t. But it’s been a total เสีย of our ชีวิตชีวา.

“Are we going to Overland?” you ask.

“Why not?”

But before we can talk any further, you’re finishing work and I’m changing diapers.

But we’re not slaving, and we’re not dragging. Each task carries momentum, and we’re pushing forward in between meltdowns and spills. Our daughter has been particularly pugnacious today, her arguments largely lacking in reason and exceeding in emotion.

We have to go in bursts, and it’s got me thinking, that when I have the urge to clean a bathroom or scrub a floor, maybe the cycle of momentum is us coming alive again. Momentum, momentum, momentum, rest, rest. It’s a welcome progression from work, work, work, rest, rest. Or more precisely, work, work, work, scroll, scroll scroll.

We’re finally putting something out into the world. We’re finally, finally, going. Doing what we set out to do. And maybe soon we’ll find ourselves in a lifestyle of go, go, go, go, rest, rest, rest.

It’s a different adventure than just living overseas. It’s a different adventure than just having kids. It’s different than raising kids overseas.

We’ve been so paralyzed by something—fear or indecision or stability—that while we made so many physical moves, the spirit of life itself was stagnant inside us. The driver of our union and the wind in our sails, still.

“Yay, Iceland!” Our son echoes me. It’s good to look back on the memories. On our first adventure. I’m filled with fondness for it; I was stuck for so long and I can’t waste more energy on feeling anything else. Am I the reason we’ve been stuck?

It doesn’t matter now, because we’re moving forward, ค่อย ๆ. We’re thawing, we’re stretching up to the sun. A seed sown long ago, thought to be dormant. Maybe the roots just needed time to develop.

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There comes a point where you know too much, and all it does is freeze you.

As much as I am willing to cosplay as a homesteader and homeschooler, I just find, that’s not me. It’s not us. It’s somewhere parallel to our rebellion, but it’s not us.

Our rebellion is against debt cycles and “almost but didn’t” and greener grass and “I meant to but I forgot.”

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Your lamyai are on the floor and one day they won’t be. We’re realizing that. What world will our children inherit? Debt and slavery? Or will they grow up to be curious and generous, and to know that they are limitless?

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Let’s decide that we haven’t wasted our time. We’ve been getting ready. So, finally, after all these years, let’s go.

Well, I’m Esther. I’m the mom, or at least that’s what the evidence would suggest. There are enough photos of me pregnant and laboring and having freshly experienced the shock of having a real life human child pass through her birth corridor that would suggest that, I indeed, have birthed two children. Years later, they’re still here (actually, right over there), but I am only just now beginning to feel like less of a babysitter waiting for the parents to get home, and more like someone who could maybe actually be a mother.

Anyway, enough about me. My husband is Matt, the hardest worker, most driven and most visionary man that I have had both the most immensely challenging and immensely adventurous of lives with. He does all things zeros and ones, and runs all of the background and logistics of everyday life and operations. He is foundational.

And, we have kids. Two kids, and two cats. And, we don’t exactly “travel the world” but we do “live internationally.” The short story is, we met and got married in the States, moved to Thailand, went “home” to have a baby, moved to Spain, and we’ve recently bounced back to Thailand. The long story is much, much longer.

The point is, our lives have been more mobile than most and less stable than some. From cat passports and cat cafes to bad deals and Thai jails (oops, I wasn’t supposed to say that!), we have been around the world looking for the place we can call home. We’re looking to do it debt-free and ASAP, so we can get OUT of this matrix. So, our lives together has taken on a life of its own.

I like to write but I’m someone who never does anything twice because I’m always good the first time and always bad the second time. On the other hand, I don’t usually get things right the first try and often need a second go. Either way, I’ve realized, some things need to be done more than once and more than twice. So, I’m working on doing it twice. Maybe more.

Pardon my stream of consciousness in the night, but I thought I should introduce us, and just get it done, just do it twice, so I can do it a third time. We’ve got a story to tell and a journey to take, so let’s go.