Clean Slate
It’s a cold winter morning in central New Jersey. My hand grasps the ice coated handle to the door of my car after an evening of freezing rain. It’s 4:30 am and it’s still dark. Driving on an empty highway towards the glowing city alone with my thoughts. “Here i go again” i said to myself. Another day, same drive, same job, same feeling of not accomplishing anything. I had to be in the office around 6:30–7:00 am. I would reach Liberty State Park around 5:30 and walk to this spot where i could watch the sun rise behind the Manhattan skyline.
This was my time to myself. Everyday i kept thinking, when am i going to get to do the things i want to do. How long will it take? I’m tired of waking up and doing the same thing over and over and feeling like i’m going nowhere. But where is it that i want to go?
My thoughts brought me back to my father who passed away when he was 55. He was a telecommunications salesman and very successful. He lived to work but was able to afford to enjoy taking trips to Europe and the caribbean. He was overweight like me and eventually ended up on dialysis. He passed away a few days after 9/11 from his body failing him. I’m now 37 years old. I fear dying as young as my father did. My biggest fear is not experiencing life.
I started thinking to myself “what do i really want in life?”
“Do i want to climb my way up the corporate ladder?” I see people who are above me at work and watch them have to work harder and longer than i do. A larger salary sounds great but does that mean less time with my wife? I already only see her for two hours each night when i get home from work, after four hours of commuting roundtrip each day. This isn’t what i wanted.
My goal is to do what it takes to end my day with experiences. I had enough of postponing my dreams of seeing the world. I began to think of how to do this. First i wanted to live in a place that would make me happy without having to dream of where i could visit to achieve the same feeling.
Hawaii made us happy. Kim and I had visited Hawaii on our honeymoon and couldn’t resist going back. After five years of visiting, it began to feel like a second home. After months of talking with Kim about the idea of making our home somewhere else, i was faced with the challenge “what will i do for work?”
What i thought would have taken years, managed to happen in a span of a few months. This feeling of excitement ignited inside me. This idea that we were no longer dreaming. This is real. After almost a month of scrambling to get things in order, we boarded a plane and landed in Hawaii. It all felt pretty surreal.
The first few weeks felt like we were on vacation. Our first morning on Oahu, we woke up at 4:30 am and made our way to Magic Island. Watching the first sunrise from our new home. We did it. We took something that people would only dream about and made it a reality. Now i wake up everyday with a feeling of excitement. We are surrounded by new opportunities and experiences everyday. We now have a balcony (lanai) which faces east and now my mornings are me simply sliding the door open and watching each new day begin.
Both our commutes are now within 10 minutes from our apartment and we now have 5–6 hours of time to spend together during the week.
Three months later and this now feels like home. The stress of what i’m going to do next is no longer there. I don’t feel like i have to climb anything. We don’t dream about where we can go for vacation. Now its time to enjoy life instead of living to work.
