An unconventional life

I never really pictured myself doing the whole suburban family, office job, two point five kids white picket fence thing. As a youngling, my dreams were always more in the lines of swinging from the rings of Saturn or fighting the thieves with the help of a genie and a magic carpet – I wanted to be an astronaut for the longest time, and, as a second choice, I had pilot or journalist on my list. Travelling storyteller at the very least. But things happen, and suddenly, one day, you wake up and you are living the life you could never imagine – even if your house has a black wall rather than a white picket fence, and fairies in the garden rather than frogs.

My daughter is now old enough to start really thinking about her future, and dreaming her own dreams. And she also dreams of an unconventional life, spread across the four corners of our beautiful planet and beyond. Which probably means it is time I can start unshackling myself from this suburban humdrum and start chasing wider horizons. And of course, with my faithful companion right by my side, we are finally starting to make plans that would hopefully allow us to do just this.

I do find it scary just how easily one slips into this convenient life of quick shops and take-out and gadgetry and creature comforts, only to slog away for 40 or so years of ones life, all in preparation of that elusive one day when one may retire and see the world. Oh, I understand that we ‘do it for the kids’, but I cannot help but wonder if the children would not benefit more from a worldly education delivered from the locations where history was made by their own parents, than being stuck in a world where Playstations and iPods have replaced parental contact?

No, I don’t want an ordinary life, not for my daughter and not for her children. And I would do everything possibly to make it a reality – well, maybe anything…