On yer bike.

The words to one of my favourite chillout songs go like this:

Well this is to solve all my problems
To get out of drugs, I’ve had enough of that.
I’ve had the college, I’ve had the earning the money and the material trip.
I just decided I was going to find a new way of life, so I took off on my bicycle.

So. It makes me think. That could be me. I’m at that point. I want to find a new way of life. But how many people can actually do that? I guess anyone CAN, but how many people actually would? I have for a couple of years now had this dream that, at sometimes seems quite possible, and sometimes seems so far away it may as well be the other side of the world. But the dream IS the other side of the world…. Literally.

I want to travel, and I want to travel for a long time… a couple of years or thereabouts. I want to go and teach English in an Asian country, preferably Japan; I want to do another ski season in Canada; I want to get on a bus or train and travel all across Europe; I want to live, and I guess work, in London for a while; I’d like to be a nanny in Switzerland or France for a while (preferably to a nice rich family who will give me my own car and who have a chalet somewhere snowy!). Ok, so all of that will take at least a couple of years I feel. Thing is, I’m nearly 23. I probably wouldn’t leave until the end of 2007, and start with a season in Canada. That gives me 18 months to save money. Even though I’m terrible with money, I can do that.

The difficulty is not going to be leaving Australia and home. I think the difficulty is going to be coming back. What would happen to my life here while I wasn’t around? My friends would be all grown up and married (many of them are pretty close already). I would have to get a new job, I would have to get all new students, and I would have absolutely no money, no house, no car. By the time I get back I will be 26 or 27. How does one start again at that age? It’s not what I imagined my life being like, but it’s a dream I keep coming back to. It’s not the sort of thing I want to miss out on because I’m terrified of what will happen when I get back. THAT is not how I want to live my life.

I think that my answer is to get on my bicycle.