Surprise

We came home for Christmas! Shocking, again, would be a good adjective to use when describing the looks on our Moms' faces. The Schmids, Jessica's family, have an unnatural love of surprises. When we decided to come home, for reasons i will outline in the next paragraph, Jessica insisted that it be a surprise. My brother picked us up from the airport on Tuesday afternoon. We intercepted Jessica's mom returning to work from her lunch break. I had joked in the car that we were going to give someone a heart attack showing up unannounced. Jeannie physically grasped her chest as she let out a shrieking scream in the Tri-City School parking lot. For a moment I was contemplating how to explain to the police that this woman screamed and then collapsed; a suspect story for sure. That evening my Mom gave a similar performance, and Grandma also the following morning.

So why did we come home early? Our original plan was to be gone six months to a year and also included South East Asia, South and Central America. Regions we had yet to travel to. As I sat on a 17 hour flight from Mumbai to New York with a dozen screaming children I asked myself that very question along with why I had decided to not drug myself with NyQuil like Jessica had. She was sleeping soundly next to me. I had plenty of time to solidify the loose net of reasons that had compelled us to buy tickets to LA instead of Bangkok the previous week. So here are the reasons in no particular order:

• We were getting close to our budget limit.
• We were bored with traveling- This may sound lame but there is a declining marginal benefit to seeing the 1000th temple, cathedral, or museum.
• We both love Christmas and there was not a lot of it in a predominantly Hindi and Muslim country.
  
• We agreed that we would like to continue international traveling but do the other regions at a later date and in one month increments.
  
• We felt that we had accomplished most of what we set out to do.
• I was sitting on a near deserted coconut palm fringed beach with a beautiful woman. The air temperature was 80 degrees and the water was the same. I had just ate breakfast for less than $1. I had (still have) no job, no agenda, and the biggest decision of the day would be what type of beer to have with dinner. I though ''this is it,'' this is what people dream their entire lives of doing. I felt a sense of completion and a desire to stop being a bum and get a job.
• Tax season is starting and it would be a good time to get a job in the industry.
• After a lot of prayer, short of an audible voices or angles, we felt that it was what God wanted us to do.