Journey into Fatherhood

A heart is beating 150 times a minute inside of Chaya’s belly. I must admit that I put it there. I suppose this is what men do.

Wade from VagabondJourney.com will become a father in August. He has no idea what is on the other side of this hill.

New journeys, new horizons . . .

I saw a raspberry looking thing within a tunnel that was projected upon an ultrasound screen. The doctor told me that it was my baby. I suppose I had to believe him. Chaya was laying bare butt on a table, so it was not the time to disagree that I could not have possibly made such an odd looking thing.

“What is this thing?” I wondered, “a flower, a lobster, a baby?”

The third option proved correct. I had made a human.

I am going to be a father.

Vagabond Journey.com now has the possibility of becoming a family operation. The knowledge that I will soon be a father has made me think about money. I do not have much money, and every prospect that I do have involves traveling: archaeology, English teaching, journalism. Staying put is not an option. But I am relieved to know that I can live far cheaper while traveling than I could while sedentary in the USA.

No, I do not believe that this means that I will need to stop traveling. Craig from Travelvice.com has proven that a couple can continuously travel with a baby. There is also much evidence to support the idea that little kids travel well. Perhaps traveling blends with the usual mindset of children. Perhaps travelers are just overgrown kids.

No, I will not need to stop traveling, but I will need to travel a little more slowly. I will need to take the opinions of two other people into account before deciding on my next move, before deciding on when to stay and when to leave.

I am now part of a we rather than being an I. 

I will travel as a family, rather than as an individual.

I will have to research my next moves a little better, I will have to have a place to go in each place. I will not be able to just sleep in a ditch when I cannot find an acceptably priced place to stay. I will have to take public transport more often than hitch-hiking or riding a bicycle.

I am 27 years old, I have been traveling around the world for a little over nine years. My traveling style will probably change slightly, but the journey will still continue. I am going to have to work more and travel a little slower.

I am going to have to walk a little slower.

This is alright. This will be a welcomed change. Chaya is a good woman from a good family. I would be an idiot if I did not want to have a child with her.

Chaya is also a traveler: Africa, Latin America, Asia, and Europe have all experienced the graces of her footsteps. She is bold. She is intelligent. She will be a good mother.

My only worry is about money. I like writing and working on Vagabond Journey.com, but I fear that I will need to begin putting more time into other avenues of income. But Chaya is now helping me with the site, as she has taken on responsibility of the Travel Photos section, publishing forty photos with captions daily. If two of us bash at this wall, then maybe we could loosen up a few more chunks of rubble, lime, and mortar. Perhaps, we could make enough off of the site to compliment our other earnings, enough to have an underlying source of income to continue traveling with a family.

We are now looking for English teaching jobs in Turkey. The bean money made from teaching, combined with that of Vagabond Journey.com, combined with whatever I can make by writing magazine articles, combine with whatever I can make by working on archaeology sites could perhaps keep us traveling as a family.

I will make it work.

Onto new horizons.

The journey continues.