Why Take The Path Less Chosen?

Yesterday, I posed a question on our Facebook page about what people would want to know about living aboard.  The idea is to develop some fodder for articles that I will (soon!!) write and submit to sailing magazines.  One question asked why Scott and I chose this life, when so many others in our situation (young, newlyweds...etc.) choose a life of the more, I don't know, "land-based" variety.

The truth is both Scott and I have wanted nothing other than what we are living right now for the larger portion of both of our lives.  When we met and realized we shared the same dream, well, that was just gravy.  Let me see if I can explain from my point of view...

I've always been a dreamer.  I attribute this fact to wonderfully supportive parents who not only instilled a love of travel, but a love of reading...more specifically, a love of stories.  I grew up wanting a story of my own.  Not necessarily a book, per se, but a life worthy of one.  The path less chosen historically seems to scratch this itch and just seems to be the one that I take in life - a lot.  Rebel spirit?  Perhaps.  I, however, attribute it to something greater - something bigger than myself.  I am following what is in my heart and soul.  I am living my life on my terms and I am lucky enough to a) be able to do it and b) have someone I love do it with me.  I count my blessings daily.

Scott and I have planned this journey from the moment we met 4 years ago.  We made some sacrifices (only had one car, lived in a very cheap apartment that could not get any closer to the 'el' train, gave up our summer to work on our boat...etc) but I think the most important thing is that neither of us ever wavered or doubted what we were after.  We just kept our eye on the prize.  Kept the dream alive, as it were.

Sure - we don't have a house (or any real "land based" possessions to speak of), have put a 'hold' on children and are alienated (physically) from our family and friends.  However, you just can't have it all in life and the way we look at it, life is to short to not get out there and enjoy the heck out of it.  For us - that means traveling, meeting new people, seeing the beauty of the world and sailing.  We choose to live freely, away from commutes, away from neon office lights, away from meetings and deadlines and  away from the totally constructed 'norms' of society.  Sure - we might return broke as a joke and have to start all over, but we're going to have one heck of a story to tell our kids...or have them be a part of.

If that doesn't sum up why we're doing this, I'll let my old friend Robert Frost do it in his beautiful poem, The Road Not Taken:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 

Sure has.

Love,
Brittany & Scott

*Wrote this at 4:30am after being unable to sleep due to a) a buzzing mosquito around my head and b) a sudden (and unexpected) downpour which sent me up on deck to close up the boat.  That is why you are seeing this post marked at 5am.  :)