First: Make a list of things to do before you die. Realize that you are always inching toward death and still haven’t done a single thing on that list. Decide to do something about it.
Quit your job. Leave home. Travel around the world.
Tell yourself, “If I make it to Ha Long Bay, this trip will be a success.”
Go to Peru. Go to Bolivia. Go to Argentina. Check off some things from the list.
Meet a couple of Americans and drive around South Africa with them. Live in a village. Learn to carry buckets of water on your head. Hike into Lesotho, the country that nobody else has ever heard of.
Go to Uganda. Ride across the country in a minibus with 24 people and a pregnant goat. Get work as a country-western DJ for the local radio station. Learn to harvest rice.
Go to Rwanda. Spend your days teaching English to genocide survivors. Cry. Teach them to play bingo. Laugh.
Fly to Egypt. See your husband for the first time in six months. Find out your grandmother died. Find out your mom is dying. Fall down an endless tunnel of darkness. Hole up in a yoga camp on the Red Sea.
Go to your mother’s funeral. Wrap yourself in a blanket of grief. Return to Egypt on the day a revolution begins. Feel like you’re comatose.
Take a boat to Jordan. Leave when protests begin. Go to Bahrain. Leave when protests begin. Get the nagging feeling that you are creating a trail of destruction around the world.
Go to Ethiopia. Still feel comatose.
Go to India. Love it. Embrace it. Drink in every hot day, every fragrant spice, every bit of eye-popping color. Move into an ashram. Pray.
Go to Thailand. Work with elephants and cuddle tigers. Meet a friend from home in Bangkok. Travel with her to Cambodia. Have a lot of fun. Say goodbye.
Take a bus to Vietnam. Battle Saigon’s scooter-clogged streets and get a feel for the city. Slurp down bowls of noodles. Take a bus north. When the bus breaks down for 12 hours, sleep at a bus station. When the bus works again, it’s the hottest part of the day and the air-conditioning is now broken. Sweat. Make an unplanned stop in a beach town just because you desperately need a shower.
Take more buses. Take a train. Sleep in a dirty train car on soiled sheets. Arrive in Hanoi.
Schedule a boat tour. Pack up. Get picked up at 7 a.m.
Go to Ha Long Bay.
Spend a night on a boat.
Jump off the boat and into the ocean.
Swim in emerald green water.
Lap up the sunset.
Live your dream.
