Forget what T.S. Eliot says about April being the cruelest month — it’s February. In New York City, it’s the time after all the fun holidays have passed and the novelty of the first snowfalls has worn off.

It’s just cold — unremittingly, depressingly cold.

But frozen soil is good for growing at least one thing: my escapist daydreams. During one such February a couple of years ago, my girlfriend Lauren and I started talking about weddings while having dinner at our favorite neighborhood Thai restaurant. It was a time before we were actually engaged, but after it was clear that we were going to be. And it was one of those light — almost incidental — conversations that you have as a couple that throw off some longer-lasting insights which help you figure out how you both think and feel about things.

But I’m making it sound heavier and more portentous than it was. It was really as much a way to pass the time on a cold winter night as anything else.

A Journey Of A Thousand Miles Begins With Me Shooting My Mouth Off

Probably primed by both the warm surroundings and the Chicken Curry Puffs, I asked Lauren if she had ever heard of an Around-the-World airline ticket.

“Wait…They sell those?”

“Yeah. They do.”

Without giving it much forethought, I think I then said something like this:
“What if — instead of spending a ton of money on a wedding — we just spent it all on a honeymoon trip traveling around the world?”

Lauren just looked at me blankly. Crickets.
Then she said “We totally have to do that!”

And so we have.

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