There have been two distinct moments in my life where I was absolutely sure, beyond a shadow of a doubt, knew it in my bones, I was making the correct decision: one was moving to New York, and the other was taking a break from it.

Living in New York is to have everything available to you, at all times, and that constant of having is coupled with the constant expectation that you must. You must go to the theater, go to the concerts, go to the restaurants, go to events with friends, go to work, go to the gym, go to happy hour, go and do, go and do even though all you want to do on a Saturday is sleep. Go, go, go. After nearly 8 years of feeling like my life was becoming too packed with saying “yes” to the musts, I needed to say “yes” to something other than what was expected of me.

As life often happens when there seems to be a grander plan, getting married at the beginning of the summer perfectly aligned with making three months of travel not only possible, but something we couldn’t not do. As we planned our wedding, and thought about the after, long term travel started as a whisper and grew into a full blown scream in our minds. Could we do this? Is this something that feels right? The only answer that kept coming back was yes. Finally, saying “yes” to something that would be completely ours.

And so we went for it. From the moment we decided that we were going to do this, I had a sense of peace, a sense of calm. I knew that this was exactly what we should be doing.

We are traveling in a way that is so completely different from how we normally do things in New York: We are picking what we want to do based on how we feel and not obligation, we’re planning things last minute, and we are actually taking everything in, enjoying every moment. We’re so blessed to finally have time.

We are almost a full month into our adventure and it’s been nothing short of just that. I’m absolutely sure.