In just under two weeks, we’re getting on a plane. We’re saying goodbye and jetting off to Thailand for a bit and then on home (via long layovers in Tokyo and Los Angeles). I’ve gone through this all before. The goodbyes, the silent desperation to cling to anything that truly means “home”, the hastily planned lunches and dinners, the heaviness of last looks. But I hadn’t expected to have to endure it all again. Sure, I knew I would eventually return home for a bit, but I thought that I’d get out relatively unscathed. And I knew that Dale would accompany me on my next departing flight from Australia. But I was blindsided by the sadness of leaving again.

I didn’t exactly feel like I soared in my last nine months here since leaving the nest. That in itself was a wake up call for me. But just as I was standing back up, dusting myself off, and getting ready to walk out the door, I was invited further in. Acquaintances and sort-of friends suddenly became staples in my weekly routine. Girl time over healthy lunches (usually involving avocado in some form) happened. Conversations of shared hopes and dreams took place. Drinks were had and inside jokes were shared. I got close and now it hurts.

Above all else, my time in Australia has taught me the importance of community. Of not being alone. Of having that support system in place. One of my favorite movies, About a Boy, uses that exact premise. The main character, Will, was just floating along in life until it’s shaken up by a boy, Marcus, who needs him. Will’s life is never the same and he is the better for it. I always took my support system back home for granted. But now I don’t. I now have two communities. Two homes in two hemispheres. My life will never be fully, 100% in one place again. And I am the better for it, no matter how much it hurts.

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No, Shea, you’re just doing the dishes. Calm down.

I love just looking at it and moving my finger ever so slightly to see the sparkles gleaning from diamonds. I now absentmindedly spin it around with my thumb. It makes me smile to know that I get to wear it for the rest of my life. It’s my ring.

But it’s what the ring symbolizes that brings the most comfort to me. It means that I get to marry my very best friend. My closest companion. My adventure buddy. The man I’ve been in love with for longer than I can recall at this point. The one who, for whatever reason, told me years ago that he thought we were soul mates even though we were just friends on the opposite sides of the earth who had never met in real life.

I get to choose to marry him every day. I get to have a sleepover every night with my bestie. We get to find new ways to make each other laugh. We get to struggle through life in situations we’ve never been in before. We get to grow and dream and plan. We get to figure it out together.

I’d never been one to plan my dream wedding as a little girl. To my recollection, I’d never even daydreamed about it. No visions of the perfect wedding dress, venue, flowers, or cake ever crossed my mind. Wait, I take that back. When I was about 14 years old I saw a beautiful white cake on the cover of a magazine and I kept it in my memory. So yeah… I planned the food part of my wedding. Figures.

It wasn’t until I went through a wedding (through the motions, I should say) that I discovered what my dream wedding would be. It would not be a stiff, painfully impersonal traditional wedding with a guest list so long that I would question whether or not they were related or wedding crashers. And there wouldn’t be balloons that my mom sneakily ordered for a little more decoration. No endless combination of family portraits and smiling so much my cheeks are too tired to talk. And, most importantly, there would be so much food that I would get to eat, damnit.

Which brings me to this wedding. The one that will take place the second week of August in the end of this Australian winter. The small one being held in our living room that will probably be decked out in fairy lights and candles. The guests will be close family and friends and some of them will watch via Skype from thousands of miles away in the middle of the night. We are foregoing a wedding cake in favor of our favorite donuts. I’m making the food. There will be lots of it. Ample amounts so that even I can eat this time around.

But most importantly, there will be a man waiting for me as I walk down the aisle. There will be vows from our hearts and two rings. A man that I will live the rest of my life with. My whole world will be right there in that moment. And I cannot wait.

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We turned around and Malthouse Lane’s street sign was perched on the off-set side of a building, almost as if peering around the corner to see if we would come back. As we rounded the corner into the deserted laneway, it became apparent that this was the perfect setting for a speakeasy. The sloped concrete alley was mostly devoid of the street art and graffiti that is ubiquitous in Melbourne and only housed one restaurant, the French Brasserie; the rest looked like it was simply the driveway for the Adina hotel’s deliveries. Knowing that Eau de Vie’s address is 1 Malthouse Lane, it was encouraging to see that the French Brasserie was no. 2. As we reached the end of the laneway, however, there appeared to be nothing more there except for a single lantern hanging from a wall and a smooth, grey door that, had it not been for its brass handle, could have been mistaken for more wall.

“I think this is it… I’m going to try it”, I said to Dale as I meekly stepped toward the grey door. “Um… ok…” I heard him say as he stepped closer. I pulled the creaky door open to be faced with a makeshift wall, some sort of equipment covered in a black blanket, and the sound of people talking. I nearly shut the door, thinking we had accidentally stumbled upon a storehouse, but as my eyes adjusted to the dim interior, the shape of a host’s stand appeared next to the wall and a few flickering candles illuminated the interior of a bar. We had found Eau de Vie.

We were greeted almost immediately by an employee who looked like he would have been at home in the 1920s, with his khaki suit vest and neatly coiffed hair. We opted to sit at the bar to “watch the action” as the employee suggested, and were led further inside to a large room occupied by only two other people and the bartender. The dark wood interior was filled with brown leather chairs and low sofas and the walls were adorned with antique glass memorabilia, spotted with dozens of candles. The bar was lit by illuminated glass decanters, which were probably brand new during the era they were now meant to replicate.

Jeffrey, the General Manager with an impressive black beard and handlebar mustache, eagerly shook our hands when we said we’d never been there before. Initially, our time was spent letting our eyes fully adjust to the low light; browsing the menus, one of which was their 17-page whiskey menu; and gawking at the shelves that were filled with all the hundreds of whiskey bottles that a 17-page menu yields. Eventually we struck up a conversation with Jeffrey, who was busying himself with restocking in preparation for the night ahead of him.

“What’s your opinion of Japanese whisky?” I asked Jeffrey, having never considered before that Japan would have a whisky scene. Not missing a beat, Jeffrey offered a brief history lesson on the subject of Asian whiskys and how they were beginning to hold their own in a world traditionally dominated by Ireland, Scotland, and America. He explained how they are apt to vary due to less stringent laws regarding the aging barrels. We went with one of his recommendations, the warm, floral scented 12 year-old Hibiki which was beautifully smooth with a creamy vanilla aftertaste that made you unable to do much more than mutter, “wow”.

Sultry jazz lent itself to the ambiance as we sat there, letting the notion of delicious Japanese whisky filter through our imaginations. We finished the whisky and snacked on a plate of hearty bread, soft curd cheese, and garlic-brined olives. Jeffrey moved on to developing new cocktail recipes for the new opening of a second Eau de Vie in Melbourne. More people filtered in as the time passed, some looked as if they were unsure of what to expect like us, while others confidently strolled in with an air of privilege. Either way, we had all arrived and were now all equals in that dimly lit speakeasy – all in the know that fortune favors the bold behind the plain grey door.

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This is how I could travel the world.

Up to that point, if anyone had asked me what I would do with my life, no holds barred, I would have said “traveling photographer” without stopping to think. But I didn’t know what that meant. Other than the fabled and highly sought-after careers had by National Geographic photographers, I didn’t even know if it existed. In fact, the furthest reaches of my imagination could only envision the image of a newly checked-in travel-weary me plopping a well-worn suitcase on the bed in a low budget hotel room, grabbing my camera, and rushing out the door to some adventure I was certain would materialize.

But the answer was right in front of me.

I could get paid (or at the very least break even) to travel anywhere in the world, if only I knew enough about photography to teach a workshop.

My life completely changed course from that epiphany. The rest of my night, well into the early morning hours, consisted of information overload. I relentlessly searched for any information I could find on landscape photography, photography in general, online schools, free tutorials, and everything in between. Occasionally I would take a break from all my searching just to stop and admire pictures of the beautiful landscapes that were out there waiting for me to photograph. This was going to be my ticket to seeing the world not only on my terms, but well before I retired from whatever miserable career path I had yet to settle upon. As I reluctantly went to sleep that night, still wishing I could stay glued to my laptop in that sort of over-stimulated, desperate, sleep-deprived way, my mind wound down with fantasies of my globe-trotting, sunrise-waking, mountain-climbing, tripod-toting self and I swear happiness radiated from me for months afterward.

Fast forward three years and nine months later, I had another epiphany. Well, sort of an epiphany. No, it was an epiphany, but not quite like before. More like an awakening epiphany. A sensible, guarded, cautious, but optimistic-all-the-same, epiphany. And it started with YouTube.

I had shelved the dreams of leading photography workshops as a solid back up plan because, ultimately, I let life get in my way. I had started to live for immediate comfort, rather than nurturing my longing in a feasible way. I had indeed taught myself as much about photography as I could… devouring books, tutorials, and workshops; as well as hanging on every word of advice any respected photographer cast my way. I even returned to school and earned a degree in fine art photography. My dreams of traveling the world never dissolved, they just faded at times. Like a constant, dull ache that was simultaneously uncomfortable and comforting that would flare up at the slightest mention of a trip by anyone I knew. I contented myself with the knowledge that I at least had a dream yet chose to cover up the fact that I wasn’t pursuing it with the excuse of not knowing how. And that’s where YouTube was my saving grace. Or the gateway, at least.

On a recent afternoon, I found myself taking a break from some much needed soul searching by watching GoPro videos of South East Asian vacations that left me wanting for an escape from my newly-found blah. And then one video entitled “What to Pack for Long Term Travel” was suggested. I thought I had a good idea of what to pack for long term travel, but due to my limited experience I was curious as to what I might improve upon so I watched it. I eventually followed the user’s profile back to her blog and quickly found her monthly spending reports, which had finally begun to demystify long-term travel for me. It’s easy to buy into online programs that sell you the dreams of eternal travel, hell, even I had, but in all my wanderlust-fueled searches on the subject, I had never found anything as tangible as an honest-to-goodness budget report.

After more digging and following more leads in this network of well-informed and much experienced globe trotting bloggers, the deep-belly rumble of my mischievous optimism emerged. This, I thought, this might actually be the real answer. To be location independent and still make a livable income. Blogging for a living. Writing about my experiences. Networking with a myriad of other bloggers. I can do this, I thought.

I mulled it over for a few days before I even told a single soul. Not because I was afraid no one would support me, but because I have grown to truly hate failing/quitting/giving up/hating what I profess as my new dream. I disappoint myself. I realize I learn from every situation I put myself in, but constantly starting over a new career path or a new dream is exhausting. But I have a good, clear vision with this new venture. And most of all, I have hope. This could be how I travel the world.

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