Last week I was having a catch up with a friend. A friend that is a private person and who’s life isn’t publicly on display often on social media. I respect the fact that there are people that share more than others on social media. While discussing what has been going on during the pandemic and what we both have been up to he asked, “have you been writing”? The answer simply is no. No excuses, there certainly is a lot to write about, but at the same time, it is hard to write when every day feels like groundhog day.

I replied, “no, but I do want to start, I am going to start on February 1st.” To which the follow up question was, why February 1st, why not January 29th. I decided February 1st because in 27 days I will be 50. Might as well start off the month of my birth with a post.

Like everyone who has celebrated a birthday during the pandemic, it isn’t the way we intended the celebration to be. Many have actually said their pandemic birthday was very different and very special in its own way. I think that is very valid. We all know that zoom, facetime and any other virtual visit forum is a great way to be connected to people who you would otherwise not have at your birthday celebration. I am looking forward to hopefully having some of those connections as well as the face to face ones that will happen at a socially distanced appropriate length.

It is crazy actually, that I started a discussion with my financial advisor at a coffee shop in August 2017 to be exact. We were discussing a few things and he asked me my plans for the next five years. I specifically told him that I will need money for a trip in 2021 when I turn 50. He asked what kind of trip, my reply was, “a pretty big one”.

In July 2018, I had found the trip. It was a 14 day cruise from Australia to New Zealand with a pre-cruise stay in Sydney and a post-cruise stay in Auckland. It was for April 2021. The week before Heath passed away we talked about it and when we would put the deposit down on the trip. It is funny to think about it now, in this pandemic time of life. If we had moved forward with this trip, we wouldn’t be taking this trip as we had talked about regardless due to the Pandemic.

Life is about making plans. I have always been the kind of person that likes to have something to look forward it. There was something sane about working through the insanity of it all knowing there was a prize at the end. I used to say it would get me through the crazy winter travel period of I had a trip planned when black out was over and we were approved to travel.

Turning fifty is not any different than wanted to have something to look forward to. In spring 2018, a new destination had been decided with someone who couldn’t have been more perfect for this trip. Spending Passover and Easter 2021 in Israel. Experiencing the best of what our two religions had to offer in the most magical of places. We had two years to plan and two years to continue to save for this time in our lives. I even created a hashtag #Passion50.

These kind of trips need to be planned well in advance. Even more so when you are looking at a pilgrimage type of holiday that happens once a year, like Passover and Easter. If you weren’t aware before, global flights are available to book 331 days in advance. Which, if you do the math on this trip would have been April 2020. We all know what was happening in April 2020, and planning a trip to Israel was not one of them.

Last fall we looked at the calendar and the dates of the two holidays in 2022 are even more symbiotic than they are in 2021. It is too soon to tell what this looks like. I am hopeful for a time in in the spring or early summer when we can start to have a discuss about the future of this trip.

The Pandemic hasn’t stopped me from thinking about what is next. I understand so many things (like life) are on pause, but when it time to push play I am going make sure the volume is turned up loud!

Until next time,