Soon to Expire

Yep, my passport, my ticket to the world, to cultures, to life abroad is what's about to expire. Hardly seems possible...wasn't it just yesterday that I had it expedited for my first trip overseas- to Ireland for the Dublin Prayer Conference in 1999? I'd show you the photo but it's hideous... I was a scared 23 year old, leaving home soil for the first time, all alone. What was initially a week-long journey turned into three more years of adventure and the most formative years of my life and heart as I left home to work with World Harvest Mission in Dublin.

My little blue book sports stamps from Spain, France, Morocco, Gibraltar, England, Austria, Germany, and Italy. There are several pages in it that show return trips to the US, and visas from Ireland that state that I was a legal resident of the Emerald Isle. Precious memories.

I always planned to have it renewed...still do. But a trip abroad seems a bit silly at the moment. Not something we'll likely do for a few more years, and we might as well renew my passport when we get one for LeGrande and baby Jack. We'd love to take him to Europe one day, but my travel days are over for the moment. Back in December I even posted a Craigslist listing to sell the backpack that I used when my team spent the month of March 2003 in Europe and N. Africa. I sold it within a week, to a mother who wanted to give her daughter a nice, used backpack for her to travel abroad with. It was bittersweet...selling something that packed stories as well as clothes for 3 weeks on the continent.

With the money that I got from the sale of the backpack, we bought a different kind of pack on ebay...

a baby pack...supposedly the best and most comfortable and ergonomic one out there. It's an Ergo carrier, and Jack can be toted on our hips, back, or front in it until he's 30 pounds...if we carry him that way till he's that heavy! He'll be the most precious cargo I've toted around, even moreso than those memories from Europe. I can't wait!

Still, it seems a bit stifling NOT to have a current passport...like I'm behind a closed door and don't have permission to leave. Maybe I should reconsider...