The Jeep and me( and the cat) all stopped at Zion and Bryce Canyon on one of our trips. Another time, we all slept a night in the Grand Tetons in that Jeep on top of all of my stuff so that we could wake up in a beautiful place. So many memories…
Maybe you noticed the name of this post is Launch. On January 18th of this year (2017) that Jeep was stolen from the hospital parking lot while I was at work. It was such a shock to my system; everything about my ability to be free in the US and travel from job to job was taken away just like that. (The hospital administration couldn’t have cared less, by the way).
Obviously, the first thought I had was to try and replace it but finding a comparable Jeep in good working order wasn’t going to happen for what the insurance paid out. I looked through hundreds of car websites and realized that I didn’t want to drive anything but a Jeep.
Along the way, I lost my job (I didn’t cry at all over that, what a horrid hospital). My cat was getting older and more frail. The life I was living was slipping away bit by bit and I was watching it slide away.
So I decided to quit. All of it. I decided to take the loss and make it a win. The Jeep, the nursing, the cat, the USA. I bought an affordable little motorcycle, scheduled myself for a hip replacement that I desperately needed, (but due to the job loss I got stuck inside the USA for that one, it was a miserable experience compared to my hip replacement in India) and decided that I’d start over with that Jeep money instead of jumping back into the same life.
Now here I sit, I’ve just booked tickets to see friends in Chicago, then Florida, and finally to Cartagena, Colombia where I will start my journey with a 5 week intensive Spanish course. And from there? Who knows.
Ironically, I’ve never felt more free.
