Sometimes the big life decisions are made for you by a series of ”coincidences”.
That is certainly how we feel after the events of Friday.

Friday should have been a day of joy! Not only was it Friday but Mark’s
co-worker, Sigrid, got married! The whole work team and partners were invited
and we were planning to attend but things had been so busy at work that I
decided that I couldn’t go. I tried to justify my decision by saying that I had
to be at work to run the weekly status meeting. It didn’t feel right, but I was
having difficulty managing the balance between staying on top of things at work
and having a normal personal life. Work has been really miserable these last few
months. I am responsible for tasks beyond my current language ability and it’s
just not working out. In fact, it's to the point that it's been making me sick.

Anyhow, I finally decided that I would go to work instead of the going to the
wedding. Mark would take the car and head to the wedding, stay for the afternoon
lunch and then head back North to pick me up after work. Well, around ten to
five in the evening Mark called and told me that he’d had a car accident. He was
fine but he was still 2 hours away from being able to pick me up. It was a
mirror of my accident just 12 days previous -- another accident form, another
discussion with the police, another call to the lease company – all in Dutch.
Ugg.

Mark never did pick me up at work. He called around 6pm from a gas station
saying that the car was freaking out and that he’d meet me at  home. So, I
hopped a ride to the station with a co-worker and took a train to Utrecht. When
I finally got home, Mark wasn’t there. “Okay… be calm, be calm… everything is
fine” I thought. Well, when he wasn’t  there and hadn’t called at 9pm, or 10pm
or even 11pm, I started getting upset and somewhere during that "not so calm"
period I had a big realization that our life here in the Netherlands isn’t
making sense. We’re living for the travel, and only for the travel so why wait
another 9 months before heading out to travel full time? I couldn’t really think
of a good reason why not.

Mark finally got home at 11:30. He had burst the radiator on the car and it died
some 2km down the freeway after he had called me from the gas station. He didn’t
have our phone number which is why he hadn’t called and he had been all over the
Netherlands trying to take care of the current car and get a replacement.

We’ve spent quite a bit of time discussing the options this weekend and have
decided that now is the time.  We’re heading back to Seattle this week and will
be taking a bunch of stuff with us to put into storage. The more we think about
this, the more it seems that the timing is right. So… Fast Forward! We have
exactly 47 days to prepare for this big adventure. Bring it on!