Exit Stage Left - Undramatically

Of course what should happen is that you announce your intention to travel the world, go home, throw a few things into a rucksack, sling it onto your back and march straight onto the plane, and out of your life. To thunderous applause, rousing music and possibly the odd firework. At least, that’s how they’ll do it when they get round to making the film.

It turns out that the process of exiting your life is rather more dull, and takes rather more effort.

We sit, in row 21 of a fully packed passenger plane, crossing the world at incredible and gravity defying speed. I am wrapped in a brown blanket for no real reason other than I was given one and it seemed rude not to use it, and my husband, (‘M’) is staring at a small screen on the back of the seat in front, which is showing Godzilla, in which a lot of men seem to be blowing a lot of things up. The cabin is dark because we are supposed to be asleep, and the air is full of the smell of deodorant (the people in front of us seem to be trying to drop a hint) and the sound of gentle snoring. And if you think this is what I refer to when I use the word ‘dull’, you are wrong. This is bliss.

To backtrack, M and I have spent the last year planning this trip, ordering rucksacks on amazon, checking out the hundred best possible ways to convince mosquitoes that we are simply not worth biting, resigning from jobs or arranging sabbaticals, handing work over to new colleagues and being jabbed with increasingly noxious viruses in an attempt to avoid catching them. In the last month activities ratcheted up to a thrilling round of packing things into boxes, labelling things, cleaning things, telling approximately 70% of the world’s population (it seemed) that we were moving, and generally an awful lot of listening to hold music.

Perhaps, said somebody, you should blog before you leave, and recount the preparations. You are lucky, (whoever out there is being nice enough to read this), that I did not subject you to that. I am afraid to say that it is really quite dull.

What was not dull, amid all this, was the happy anticipation of what we were doing, (which increased in direct proportion with the level of admin required to do it), and also the excuse to see all the people we cared about the most in order to say goodbye. We have, in this little round of visits, had more contact with some people than we usually do in a year. The ‘brave adventure’ which everyone so readily credits us with having, is nothing to what so many of our friends and family are embarking on. People are having babies, undergoing surgery, moving houses, buying houses, moving jobs, qualifying in new careers, publishing works of academic brilliance, starting and ending serious relationships. We, on the other hand, are sitting on a plane watching films and drinking tomato juice. Who are the real brave adventurers?

In fact, even the goodbyes themselves were not dramatic. It’s quite hard, when it comes to it, to say goodbye any more specifically when you are going away for a year, than when you are going away for a few months or simply, until next time. The word ‘goodbye’ is still the same, and doesn't have variances according to how weighty a goodbye it should be. Most people found, as did we, that the easiest thing is to simply treat it as though we will be away for a week, a month, or however long we are normally away from that person for. A year is not actually very long, in the grand scheme of things, and electronic communication allows for plenty of contact, wherever we may be. “See you in a year”, we said, and went home to pack another box.

And as for my lofty aspirations to avoid 90% of my focus being on small, inconsequential issues that I won’t ultimately even remember? Well, if you stepped into my mind at any point in the ‘preparing to leave’ process, you would find it was running 100% on deep angst about trivia.

I am beginning to realise we are not in a film.

So we sit on the plane, knowing, finally, that all the boxes are packed, the flat emptied, the goodbyes said, the arrangements made, and the bags (hopefully) in the hold and we can feel the tension of the last month gradually floating away. Our primary emotions are neither excitement nor apprehension. We are just very, very relaxed. It feels like luxury. And it is.