Boats make for good metaphors. Well-worn metaphors. The one here I'm borrowing from somewhere. The high seas, it goes, are a dangerous place. An uncertain place. There are waves and weather and sea monsters real and imagined. The ocean swallows up little boats without a thought. It's best, then, to stay in the harbor.
But ships are not meant to idle in the bay. They're meant to cut the waves deep and race headlong toward the horizon. They're meant to sail. To catch the winds. To swim with the whales by blue day and follow the stars by dark night.
Leave a ship in harbor too long, and it'll start to rust. Errant debris will clog the systems. Barnacles will latch onto its underbelly. It'll be eaten away by algae and oxidation and sloth and neglect. It'll become a boat no longer suited to its very purpose.
We set sail today. Figuratively speaking. We lift our anchor and raise our sail and let the cool ocean breeze pull us from the safety of the familiar shore. We sail toward adventure, maybe; discomfort, definitely. We sail toward storms and uncertainty and rough waters and fear. We sail toward what will be some of our most challenging days. But, too, some of the very best.
We're leaving our homes, leaving our country, leaving our jobs and our loved ones and the tranquil harbor in which we've listed these past years. We're off to something altogether different. To new spaces, new faces. To discovery both inward and outward. To a bike ride around the world, or something like that.
Wish us luck.
