When Eric and I chose the name Trips to Walkabout a year ago, we had no idea it would turn out to be quite so prophetic. Who would have thought that within a few months Eric would walk away from his job as a chemical engineer and I would announce my early retirement. Two perfectly healthy adults in their 40s, walking away from good paying fulfilling jobs with no solid plans for what comes next. Crazy, right?
But here’s the thing, we’re not the only ones making choices like this. Just look up “van life” or “the great resignation” anywhere online and you’ll see countless others making similar choices to walk away from what society deems a successful life in the quest for something more.
Wanting less to have more
And that’s what I want to talk about — that something more. What does more look like for us and what compels us to risk our financial security to seek it out? More may mean different things for different people, but for Eric and I it means a shift in priorities. We want less things and more time. Time to pursue the things we’re most passionate about and time to spend with loved ones when they need us.
In America, we’ve been raised to think that these thoughts are normal for those in their late 50s or early 60s, but certainly not in your early 40s. We could be forgiven such radical thoughts if one of us had a terminal illness or something truly traumatic occurred, but that’s not the case for us. I could point to the decline in health of our parents as a wake-up call. I could blame my increasingly uncooperative joints due to Rheumatoid Arthritis. I could even include myself in the “great resignation” of post-pandemic professionals.
While all of these are contributing factors, if I’m truly honest with myself, there is something much deeper at play. And it has been propelling Eric and I in this direction for years. This is where the walkabout comes into the story.
walkabout = a journey on foot undertaken by a person of Australian Aboriginal descent in order to live in the traditional manner
Why we chose walkabout
I freely admit to knowing little about Australia’s First Nations culture, but I do know that a walkabout is a vital transition for emerging adults that is both a spiritual and physical rite of passage. It’s a chance to use the skills and knowledge that have been passed on to them by family and community elders. While Eric and I are certainly not young adults, I feel like we are in the process of emerging as our true adult selves. To do that, we have to leave the confines of our middle-class American life. A walkabout for us means stepping outside the known to explore a wider world and how we fit in that world.
From hippie commune to walkabout
At this point I believe it’s important to share that I grew up on a hippie commune in Southwest Louisiana. Shortly after college, my parents walked away from the American dream to join a “back-to-the-land” movement in the 1960s. It’s a long story, one I hope to tell in a book, but let’s just say they lived as simply as possible, shunned materialism and consumerism, and focused on living a lifestyle that was centered around community and their Catholic faith. Unlike so many others from that generation, this wasn’t a fad or a moment for my parents. They continued that lifestyle for over 20 years and still espouse the values even though they no longer live within the community grounds.
I married a man who was not raised on a hippie commune, far from it! Eric grew up in a middle-class suburban household, attending private school and being raised to believe that if he worked hard and got a good paying job that could support a family, he’d have everything he wanted. Having grown up with very little material goods and no money for travel, a financially secure life sounded great to me! So for 20 years we focused on our careers, on building a nest egg and paying off a mortgage, and we were happy.
Fissures and quakes
Life has a funny way of reeling us in when we get too far away from our true selves. The first crack in our perfectly laid plans happened five years into our marriage, when we learned we couldn’t have children. Infertility wasn’t something we ever considered and it was a grieving process for both of us. Looking back, however, it was also our first divergence from what I call “the wheel of normalcy.”
In our early 30s, Eric and I were happy with our place in life and while we sometimes felt fissures of discontent, a quick trip somewhere and a good hike usually fixed us right up. We had decided to adopt and had begun classes for foster care. But at 32, I went from healthy to unable to hold a toothbrush or get out of bed. Anyone with autoimmune disorders can tell you that trying to get a diagnosis is almost worse than the symptoms themselves. By the time I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis, my priorities had drastically shifted. Those first years of pain and uncertainty are locked up tight in my psyche, but even so, as I write this I can feel my throat constrict and my eyes burn. I’ve moved past it but the trauma lingers and it’s a powerful force that shapes the decisions Eric and I make about our present and future.
Then 2020 hit and all hell broke loose in the world, or so it seemed at the time. Not only was it the year of COVID-19, but our hometown was hit by two devastating hurricanes within a month of each other. Our home was spared but we spent seven weeks without power, living with relatives and watching neighbors rebuild the homes which they had just begun to repair after the first storm. Suddenly, a large home with lots of beautiful things seemed like a burden rather than a comfort.
The final push
In January of this year, Eric’s mom was diagnosed with a debilitating disease that robbed her of her ability to walk and left her in constant pain. Watching her work to recover this year, while caring for her husband who has his own health issues, was the final push for Eric. With the acceleration of my arthritis and the declining health of his parents, it became painfully obvious that if we are ever going to travel, it has to be now.
Seeking a simpler life
I share this condensed version of our life to explain why we are choosing to walk away from a safe, happy life to embrace an unknown future. For me, I seek a walkabout year to return to my roots and to validate the simple lifestyle of my parents and community elders. Eric has a more painful path, as this will be a rejection of his family’s core values and his internal conviction that “the man should provide.” For both of us, we want a life uncluttered by things and society’s expectations. To discover what we’re capable of when we step out from our carefully constructed walls of financial security and 5-year plans.
