We have a pool!

Okay! We changed our location to sunnier one. We have entertainment for our kids - the pool. And a beach into the walking distance. How bad can it get, right? 

I even created an optimistic schedule, that will bring us closer to success and satisfaction. 

Here it is: 

5:00–6:00 Leo and I get up, and go for a jog. 

6:00–8:00 Shower plus intimate exercise if I am in the mood; morning coffee, and deep work (kids are still sleeping!) 

8:00–8:15 Kids are up. We do morning stretching together. Each of us shows one exercise. In the end, each tells what he/she is grateful for, and what is she/he looking forward. 

8:15–9:00 We have breakfast together. It is essential connecting time. We plan our day. Kids are switching each day in doing dishes after we eat. 

9:00–10:00 It’s Spanish learning time. Kids are watching a great cartoon made for learning Spanish. Leo and I are practicing on Duolingo. 

10:00–12:30 Kids are creating with paper, scissors, colors, while I am working on social media or arranging articles for a website or searching our next home. Leo is coding with earplugs. I can take kids to the pool, and work there. Or I can take them to a playground. It’s playing on their own time under my supervision. 

12:30–14:00 Nap time for kids. (That usually means they tease each other in a darkened room.) With Leo, we continue whatever we are working. 

14:00–15:00 I make us lunch. Sometimes kids are helping, or at least they help to arrange the table. We pull daddy out of his work, and we eat together. 

15:00–19:00 We make a trip somewhere. We are active together and explore all the mysteries which we encounter. 

19:00–20:00 Shower, dinner, brushing teeth. Daddy reads a tale. He writes a story for them sometime during the day, with which he helps them to overcome whatever they are struggling with (characters in the story have the same problems as Lejla and Erik). 

20:00–21:00 Sleep time for kids. I try to finish tasks I didn’t manage to do during the day. 

21:00–5:00 I go to bed. I read or listen to an audiobook before I drift to sleep. Leo is still working. He’ll come to bed between 23–24h. Don’t forget: he doesn’t need to sleep as we ordinary people do. He is an ubermensch ;P 

This schedule functioned for three days or so. But then... 

“Arrrr, I am fed up with this flies! Today I killed ten of them, and there are still hundreds in the apartment. How can one work if they are walking all over you?” Leo nervously updated me on his daily work progress, when I returned with kids from the beach. 

“It is hot in here,” I commented. 

“Yes, it is!” 

“Oh, mommy, what is that disgusting smell?” Lejla asked with a grin on her face. 

“It’s shit, that's what it is! Dog’s or cat’s or from both. The smell is coming from the street. That’s why all this flies!” Leo answered enraged. 

“Oh dear, you really don’t have luck with your working space,” I tried to be sympathetic. 

“It’s awful. I couldn’t finish any of my daily tasks.” 

When we put kids to bed, we sat on our smelly terrasse, grabbed a beer, and tried to reason our situation. (Beer wasn’t for reason, it was for nerves :D)

What now? 

“I need to go somewhere familiar to calm my mind and collect myself,” Leo said. 

“Where is that?” I asked. 

“Let’s go back on Gozo. We supposed to start there before our plans got ruined. I planned to organize myself, my job and our journey on that familiar island,” he explained. 

“Isn’t that a step back? We supposed to travel, and not to give up when things get hard,” was me, making things harder for him. 

“If I am honest, I don’t see this appeal of travel. To observe things millions of other tourist had seen. What’s the point? Just to see it? What you get out of it?” he was thinking aloud. 

“What you want to do then? What is meaningful for you?” I dug in him. 

“It’s creating something; building. And you cannot build if you’re switching location all the time.” 

“I don't get it. Why we even started with all this?” I asked a bit annoyed. 

“What’s the point in doing something none of us enjoys?” he answered me with a question and continued: “I cannot work because I don’t have the proper environment. I am not earning money. Kids don’t have any friends; they’re not socializing. You’re not satisfied because you’re not creating.” 

We fell silenced for a while. Then he continued: “I still want us to get to New Zealand. I want us to create a base, travel from there and return to our nest when we get exhausted. I read a good quote the other day: “Travel does not exist without a home....If we never return to the place we started, we would just be wandering, lost. Home is a reflecting surface, a place to measure our growth and enrich us after being infused with the outside world.” We are lonely. We need a community, friends to get together at the weekend. Stuff like that. Don’t you think?” 

“It does sound tempting. But I still feel like we failed...” 

“We are not failing, if we are changing our direction. We are still going forward but on a different road. Do you want to continue? Tell me. If you say, you want to go on like we initially planned, we will,” he put me in front of a decision. 

“No… That’s just beating head against the wall. You are right. We have to find another way...” 

Another silence fell on that shady terrasse. 

“Let’s go on Gozo!” I said with determination. 

“Are you saying that just because of me, or are you truly for it?” he asked. 

“I am saying it because if you think about it, it makes sense. We can rent quite cheap there, and save money for our jump to New Zealand. Kids need a home; I can see that now. They are craving for security more than adventure,” I acknowledged. 

“Ok, shall we buy tickets to Malta?” 

“Yes, let’s do that right now!”