As we stood crammed in the aisle, waiting to step off the plane at Narita airport, my 10-year-old looked out the window and then at me and said, "Well. There's no turning back now."
If I had thought of it that way, I would have been scared the day before as the plane doors shut behind us at DFW. But I'd looked forward to this day for so long, that I couldn't imagine anything that would make me want to turn back.
Before we had left, my best friend at the software company where I had just quit work had said, "Wow. I really admire you doing something like this at your stage in life." I just looked at her blankly. I was 33, a divorced mother with a son in the fifth grade. I was just starting to get comfortable in my own condo, and in my chosen career as a writer of software documentation. For me, my life was just beginning. But to my coworkers, fresh out of college, I was already over the hill.
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens
July 31, 2003
Share Your Thoughts
We arrive in Japan.