I want to live and I want to love....

So, that's decided then.

From the end of January through to sometime in September 2010, we are going to be stepping off the merry-go-round and will be taking some time off from work. Aside from an already booked ski trip in January, we've got nothing concrete planned yet, although we're hoping to get down to New Zealand and Australia for a couple of months from February. Other ideas include things like learning how to dive, going on a safari, visiting Petra in Jordan and the Valley of the Kings in Eygpt and I'd also very much like to spend some time in the Canadian Rockies outside of winter. There's literally a whole world of possibilities in front of us.

Why now? Well, since my diagnosis with MS earlier this year, I suppose it's tempting to say that I want to go and do these things whilst I still can, before my condition becomes too physically limiting. Cobblers. That's too easy and it's not really the reason at all. The simple truth is that there's not a single one of us who knows what life has in store for us, and I'm absolutely no different. If medical science has got little or no idea how my condition is going to progress, then how the hell am I going to? Why worry about what MS may or may not do to me when I could be hit by a bus tomorrow? Any of us could be.

My diagnosis has certainly been a kick up the arse: it's helped me to realise that life is too short to keep putting off until tomorrow the things that we really want to do with our lives. Who really wants to spend all their time stuck in the drudgery of a corporate desk job? It's a living and it passes the time, but it's certainly not something that I live for. I'm lucky: my critical illness insurance payout has given us the financial breathing space to make something like this possible; to enable us to afford to take the time off work and to go and do those things that we've always wanted to do. It's a fantastic opportunity and I'm not going to pass it up.

I've got some time in the office yet before I go, so I'm trying not to get too excited, but we've now got a map of the world up in our kitchen and we're about to get down to some serious planning.....it's really happening.

It's time to step off the treadmill.