The Year Ahead - 2015

Having written at length about the year (somewhat) recently ended, it's impossible not to think about what the year ahead might hold.

Fates willing, Grace will enter Middle School and Julia will be a Junior in high school. Julia will be more actively involved in job training in preparation for what happens after school. Amp and I will celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. I will end the year teetering on the precipice of 50. Both of brother Dave's girls will be in college. Mom may elect to the have the hip replacement (or two) that she needs to feel better, and get around better. At the very least, let's hope all that happens.

Dolly Sods Wilderness, WV

On a personal level, I think I can sum up my hopes for the year with the simple statement of "I want to do more." Go places. See things. It would be overly melodramatic to say that the clock is ticking. But...the clock is always ticking. That's what clocks do. And that's why they come up with sayings like "seize the day", "live your life like there's no tomorrow", and all that other nonsense. Nonsense that seems to make more and more sense as the years quickly roll by.

In the first half of my lifetime, I traveled to Europe about 5 or 6 times. I've been to France (three times), Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, Hungary, West Germany and East Germany (back when there were two), Belgium (three or four times), Holland, England and Greece. Plus Canada. I spent four weeks doing the Eurrail Pass thing with two friends (1985). I spent a summer in Greece working on an archaeological survey in 1986. In the second half of my lifetime, I have traveled to the Philippines twice to visit Amp's family, and that's it (and the more recent of those two trips was 13 years ago). There are reasons of course. Career. Family (kids); traveling with little ones is hard. But not impossible. And they haven't been little for quite some time now, so that excuse ran out a while ago.

We have discussed the possibility of going to England this year while Amparo's older brother is still stationed in London. It's easy to list the reasons why we won't actually go - not the least of which is that it's very expensive to fly four people to London. Three out of four of us need to renew (or get) passports. We all need visas (or whatever it is that we do need...). We suck at planning ahead. And did I mention it's expensive?

But not all travel need be overseas or far far away. We've done a better job the last few years of doing some day and weekend trips. We can still do a lot better, and I expect we will. We've also gone away for a weekend without the kids and (shockingly enough) the world didn't end. More of that would be nice.

And so we shall see what actually comes to pass. No goals. Just hopes. Happy. Healthy. That's enough.