New Steps, Together

I didn’t expect to be writing another post in this blog, especially not under the current circumstances. The last post, on June 17th, 2010, which began with a description of my ideal week as “chilling on the beach with three beautiful Swedish girls,” was even titled, “A Final Update in Three Parts.”

I’m now re-starting this blog on my honeymoon from Phnom Penh, Cambodia, with the assistance of a co-author: my wife, Julia Elitzer (née Goldberg). We’ll be updating it periodically over the next six weeks as we travel through Cambodia, Vietnam, the Philippines, and perhaps another country or two.

Our friends and family know that Julia and I were married two months ago in Tucson, AZ, after two and a half years of dating. Most of them also know that we initially met and dated very briefly in DC in Fall 2008. However, very few know that Julia was one of the reasons I set off the following year on the eight-month journey chronicled in this blog.

In the maiden entry, one rationale I gave for embarking on the trip was as follows:

I don't have a mortgage, kids, crushing student loans, a rigid career ladder to climb, or even a girlfriend [emphasis added]. When else in my life am I going to have the freedom to just take off on an extended, open-ended trip like this without concern for competing priorities and obligations?

You see, I had fallen hard for Julia and was still a bit heartbroken that she had ended things. In the year since we broke things off, I hadn’t encountered, much less dated, anyone who remotely held a candle to her. Julia had set a new standard in my mind, which no one else could meet. Part of the reason I set off on that journey was to attempt to fill the void that I didn’t even know existed before I met Julia.

Taking that trip turned out to be one of the best decisions I ever made. I had amazing experiences, including trekking the hills of Thailand, floating down the Mekong in Laos, feasting on snake in Vietnam, attending a wedding and visiting the Taj Mahal in India, volunteering for nonprofits and going on safaris in Tanzania and Uganda, and taking a 50-hour bus ride to South Africa for the World Cup. Along the way, I made new friends, found professional purpose, and developed greater self-confidence and self-awareness.

By the time I returned, I thought I had moved on from Julia. But nearly two years later, when Julia and I ran into each other in DC again, I realized right away that I had never really gotten over her.

When we decided to give each other another chance, I knew very quickly that this time it would last. Julia had also spent the intervening years in interesting places, including doing a Fulbright in Mexico City and massively overachieving as Acting General Manager for the US-Mexico Border Health Commission in El Paso, TX. During our time apart, we had both grown in ways that helped us understand who we are and what we want in life and made us even better partners for each other.

As my friend and roommate of six years, Rory, put it in his toast at my and Julia’s wedding, “Dan: you got to marry JULIA GOLDBERG!” Yes, I did! And I couldn’t be more excited to be embarking on a lifetime of adventures with her.