In case you have been wondering where my blog has been, the last six or so months have been a whirlwind and I honestly could not keep up.

September and October were festival season in Istria and while most of the tourists had gone home from our happy place in Pješčana Uvala, the days have been busy ones with constant road trips to festivals, visiting several other countries, delving into our language lessons in Croatian and my new stint teaching ESL on a very part-time basis.

We also did a sailing charter out of Split mid-September and visited several islands around the area including Hvar, Brać, and Vis. And had an intensely frightening experience driving home in a bura. I’ll have a complete blog post on that later.

Also my daughter Madelyn came to visit us in the first week of October. We met her in Rome and did a whirlwind tour of Italy stopping in Bologna, Florence and Venice and came back then and went to the little idyllic Croatian towns of Rovinj and Porec and explored the area around our home with her.

Good times in Rome with Madelyn!

Cappuccino and prosciutto, the breakfast of champions.

Soon after my niece Laura stopped in for a short visit right on the end of a trip she had made to Germany, and we went to Porec and Rovinj (again) and finally enjoyed a really memorable festival centered around Prsut (prosciutto) in a little Croatian village of Tinjan.

Good times, great times, scary times, the best of times, nowhere near the worst of times, and each visit worthy of an incredibly long blog post or more which I will start writing after I finish this one. So please stay tuned.

But it doesn’t end there. At the end of October Mike and I along with Carolyn met my other daughter Sarah in Dubrovnik to celebrate her 30th birthday and toured parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina then drove northward to Kotor, Montenegro, another incredible journey shared with people I love.

And then more teaching, learning and friendships blossoming and a wonderfully warm Thanksgiving with our landlord and friend as well as some American expat friends. Oh, and in between all that, a visit to the tiny Croatian village of Kringa to watch, of all things, a Saints game with an an expat and his lovely Ukrainian wife complete with jambalaya, gumbo, hush puppies and pralines.

So then it was the end of November and we had scheduled a trip to Cologne, Heidelberg and Frankfurt, Germany for the Christmas markets. Such food, Christmas cheer, and festive moments! When we returned home to Pula, we were exhausted. It was almost the end of 2018, but we knew we hadn’t even touched upon all of the things we wanted to do when we planned to move to Europe for a year.

We lived steps from the Adriatic and my husband had only sailed for two weeks out of the ten months we had been here. How could he as we had been traveling so much? And speaking of traveling, I still wanted to visit the Netherlands, Hungary, Finland, Romania, Greece, Turkey, Norway, Spain, Portugal, the southern part of Italy, Poland, and many other places.

We will only be in Croatia for a few more days before our visa expires. We have to leave for three months, which we will do, but have decided to come back in June and reapply to stay for another full year. Mike just purchased a boat here and we will be sailing a lot more when we return next year. We will still travel a lot but not at the breakneck speed at which we did this past year, so I will only whittle away a little at my list above, much to the relief of my travel weary husband.

I’m starting to think wanderlust is an addiction, folks. One that I’ll reluctantly cop to. I think I got it from from great grandfather from Bogota, Colombia who traveled all over the world via ships, and my daughter Sarah may have inherited it from me. Možda! (that means “maybe” in Croatian.)

After our three month stint in the USA, I will to continue to teach ESL and enjoy the beautiful country of Croatia. And put a little more effort into my blog, by catching up on the adventures of the last few months. It will be a pleasure to look back on those experiences with the savory warmth of time and not feel like I have to quickly rehash the experiences as they occur.

So please stay tuned.

Is the time right for you?

So how am I feeling about another year away from home? Honestly, it breaks my heart. I have hesitated telling people for fear they would be upset with me. My mom, my kids, my siblings, my nieces and nephews, my friends, my aunts and uncles, are all so far away. My DOG! Omg, I want to cry just thinking of seeing him for three months and then leaving him again. He is now my daughter’s dog, and her and my son-in-law love him as much as we do. But how do I leave everything and everyone I love (except my husband and friends here, of course!) for another year. I think of people who have to do so due to circumstances they cannot control like soldiers going off to war and my heart hurts for them.

But sometimes you know that the time is ripe to do something. That it’s something you need to do. Have to do. A goal you put off your entire life because you didn’t have the means, had too many responsibilities, thought impossible, thought you didn’t deserve it…but I’m here to say, the time is now.

At least it is for me.

For you maybe, too.

Možda.

As we approach the autumn of our lives, we have to assess and decide where we invest our fleeting time and energy. For some it is their grandchildren, others a new career that inspires them or still others, a combination of the two. Some may need to care for an aging loved one or child that still hasn’t found their way in the world. Some may search for a new relationship that replaces the emptiness or heartache of one they left behind. And for others, it is visiting places that they have always wanted to see and embracing a new culture whole heartedly.

Each of us is on our own individual journey and one shouldn’t be seen as more important or “better” than others. The one that completes us, that nurtures our souls and makes our lives feel complete is the one we should move toward. And the journey will change with the tides of our lives. For example, if my mom got ill or my children needed me, I would drop everything without a moment’s hesitation because that is where I would need to be at that time in the depths of my heart, the echoes of my soul.

That said, I refuse to mark time out of habit and stay in a comfortable setting for fear of accomplishing my dreams, and neither should you.

Our bodies are not permanently strong and healthy, nor is the possibility of attaining our dreams a never ending prospect. And the winter of your years will be warmer if you have the fuel of a life well-lived and experiences that nourish your soul to reflect upon as you move towards your final days. It sounds a little morbid, but it’s true.

We only have so much time here on earth as people. (Unless, of course, you believe in reincarnation, but then you could come back as a dog or something.)

Seriously though, Dream big, love hard and make the most of these fleeting moments.

If the time is right for you.

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