Our next Adventure

by Tom on August 26, 2010

Every memory we gained from our travels, every lesson we learned, every story we tell or blessing we have recieved from the trip just became 10 times more important about a month ago. Before I get into what has happened, let me catch the blog up on the Andrus clan and try and bridge where we left off to where we are now. Asher and Kieran continue to grow and are becoming much more thinking people than they were on the trip. We put them back in public school when we returned and they both have done well. The big boys are growing into men. Dax graduated from high school this past spring where he was the school’s outstanding history student. He also was a Governors Art scholar and a national AP scholar, none of which surprised us. I would say homecoming king was a surprise to his parents. Dax is now going to follow one of the dreams he talked about before our trip as he is off to become a “fresher” at Oxford in October. McKane is following in his brother’s footsteps although his feet are a full 5 sizes larger. He is going to be a sophomore this year and is a great student and friend and has kept all the zeal he had for life when he wrote his sixintheworld posts about keychains and coins. I have enjoyed my year of freelancing. I have had lots of great experiences and split my time between working for a venture capital firm, consulting companies on strategy and social media, sitting on advisory and boards of directors and entertaining a long string of prospective jobs. I have felt like Groucho Marx who said he wouldn’t belong to any club that would have him. On the job front I have turned down the companies which offered me and the ones I have wanted have turned me down. It was almost comical and I wondered if the 4 or 5 I was looking at in July would turn out the same. There was one I really liked in London, a couple I would consider in the Bay area and a really odd one which I could build anywhere.

As those were playing out however, everything turned upside down. As anyone who has read the blog can see Anne is a powerhouse. She is an incredible woman who can take on 3 full time tasks and do them all 100%. Since the trip she has not had as much energy and zeal. That still has not stopped her from stepping up and taking on the leadership of the women’s organziation at our church, serving others, taking an active roll in the kids’ schools or running a great household; however a spark has been missing. When I have asked her to write something for the blog, she has said she couldn’t. She had planned on writing a book about the trip, but it never felt right. I don’t know all that went into her feelings, but I had worried that she might be depressed that the trip was such a high and that we might not reach those heights again…that the trip was such a great adventure and challenge and that “regular” life was too easy on one hand and too hard on the other. She always denied that anything was wrong and felt her allergies were what was wearing her down. As we have looked at jobs in Mumbai, New York, San Francisco, and London, I thought the new locales might bring back a sense of adventure for her, but nothing seemed to spark her interest or inspire her.

It wasn’t until late July when she checked into the hospital that we found out what had been wearing her down and what our next great adventure would be. After two weeks in the hospital and a major surgery, Anne returned home and is on the road to recovery. I felt comfortable sharing details of our trip even as other people warned, “What if you get robbed?” “What if someone kidnaps your kids because they read your blog?” I do not feel as comfortable sharing details about medical information so will keep the narrative a little vague and high level. If Anne feels comfortable sharing more when she feels better, she will. Suffice it to say that if she had not checked into the hospital and gone through the surgery and her subsequent treatment she would not have been with us for long. We feel great about her surgery and her treatment and we are doing everything to make a complete recovery a reality.

We are surrounded by great family and friends who are lifting us on their shoulders and carrying us through this difficult time. We also have great faith and believe in the power of prayer and are thankful to everyone who in their own way sends her prayers, thoughts or just good mojo. While we never would have chosen this adventure, it has shown up at our door, much like it shows up on so many doorsteps every day. And we are choosing to take it head on, grow from the experience and move on to a better adventure when this one is over. Our traveling days are not over but one of the most poignant things Anne said in the hospital when things were at their darkest was, “This sure makes me glad we did the trip when we did.” Amen to that.

Kieran and Asher made mom a poster

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It’s now been more than two years since we returned from our big trip. It remains a huge part of our lives and will undoubtedly remain so for the rest of our lives. Exactly what it means, however, is hard to nail down. On the one hand I question my recollections and it all appears as a dream; on the other hand it is the year of my life lived to such a vivid extent that I can still choose a date from that 11 months and remember exactly where we were and what we were doing. One of the books I read on the trip was V.S. Naipaul’s Magic Seeds. The main character’s mental trick to stay sane during times of boredom or captivity is to remember every bed in which he has ever slept. I have stacks and stacks of hotel keys which make that an impossibility for my whole life, but I do find myself in times of boredom, not captivity, going through every city and stop on the trip and pondering what each place must have meant for each of the kids. I am sure sleeping in tents and riding camels seemed normal to a 4 year old and playing pool in hostels with travelers from around the world was about the coolest thing a 12 year old could do.

More than being just a source of reflections, I am amazed at how the trip continues to influence our lives. I recently left MySpace and am figuring out my next move. Part of this process is meeting with VC’s, recruiters, and companies. It is the rare meeting that doesn’t include a conversation, usually at the beginning, about our adventure. Unlike the comments we got pre-trip when everyone had doubts about what we doing, post-trip the comments are universally positive. The adventure stands on its own merits, especially since we all came back in one piece, but our Oprah appearance was a big validation. Thanks Oprah.

Even more significant than personal reflections or the interest of others is the deeper changes we’ve experienced: the way we look at each day, the way we think about the world and its people, the way we face challenges, the ways we rely on each other, the way we understand America’s, or should I say, the USA’s, role in the world, the way we look to the future with hope and optimism. I can see these changes in all of us. I can specifically point out the following things that are different pre and post trip:

1. One day is a lot of time and you can pack a lot into it. Rather than plan on getting through the day, I find myself planning on what I can add to a day.

2. Although I always believed in the brotherhood of man, I am less enamored with power, money, and position and more enamored with character, intellect, and personality.

3. I have a greater desire to be green because the American lifestyle does not scale to 6 billion people without serious ecological damage. (Our current home is about 1/3 the size of our old home, still waiting for a plug-in hybrid on the car front.)

4. I am less scared of failure, which allows me to take more risks, like quitting a job when I didn’t have one lined up.

5. There is so much to learn, so many books to read, so many people to meet, I am going to be busy for a long time.
6. Anne is and has been for nearly 20 years my best friend and I didn’t realize how much we help each other be better.

7. I am less afraid to dream and look for new adventures or alternatives.

8. The kids are individuals and we need to expose them to lots of opportunities, let them choose the activities and lives they want, and then support them.

9. Finally the world is really small. People are social and with technology advancing at the pace it is, the future will be insanely great and completely different than the past. (This was only reinforced by the people I worked with at MySpace.) I almost want to do the trip again now because three years later the technology is even more amazing. I would love to incorporate my Iphone, Twitter, Kiva, GPS tracking, AR, and the various social tools we only touched on in 2006.

I have a few other things I will add to this blog and I will encourage the rest of the family to post about their reflections on the trip. (It’s much harder than you’d think.) I keep a personal lifestream at tomandrus.com. This isn’t a professional site but rather a collection of my own thoughts, and things I find on the web that strike a chord in me. It isn’t meant to be anything other than a web version of all the different thoughts and interests that often rage inside my head. I’m sure as the next few years unfold it will reveal the path toward our next round the world trip. 2013 or bust!

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Not Alone in Our Madness

November 17, 2008

The wise traveler seeks counsel from those who have gone before; so fancying myself wise, I consulted travelers far and wide before embarking on our journey in 2006. One of those who advice I particularly craved was billionaire Jim Rogers. I first emailed Jim in 2001 when I read about his 2-year round the world [...]

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On the Wheel Again

September 17, 2008
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I have been hesitant to write my next post. Mostly because I always think of it as my last Six in the World post, and there are so many things I want to say. I want to talk about what we learned, how the trip changed us, all the things I have come to understand [...]

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$86,875.52

July 11, 2008

I’ve now managed to go more than three months without posting. During my online absence I’ve traveled to Atlanta twice, where I supervised the loading of two separate trucks, one bound for our new home in California, the other for long-term storage in another state, and attended the closing on our house. Yes, we managed [...]

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A Vacation By Any Other Name

April 8, 2008
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It’s been two weeks now since we returned from our spring break jaunt to Puerto Rico. I’ve tried at least three times to encapsulate our experience in post format, but as seems to have become par for the course, I’m struggling in the process. I was excited for this trip, our first real excursion since [...]

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Geographical Gratification

March 11, 2008
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One day back in January, I was wandering the aisles of Barnes and Noble searching for a book for Dax, when I spotted something that grabbed my attention and wouldn’t let go: a cover of sky blue, let’s call it Indonesian blue as opposed to Tibetan blue (much lighter) or Californian blue (much brighter), broken [...]

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Fade Into Sunshine

February 9, 2008
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We made it! I’m afraid many of you think we’ve fallen off our beloved globe to be heard from no more. Though it’s true we had moments of simply wanting to run away rather than dealing with the logistics and finances of a 6-person cross country move, we persevered, and after an intense month of [...]

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