Six Months Later

It's Christmastime! I have gone from feeling quite content with most aspects of life, to miserable in all of it, back to a kind of medium ground. I am searching changes, I guess I have been for awhile- in job, apartment, maybe eventually locale. Whenever it feels possible, I have this urge to flee. The times I see homeless men shooting snot rockets into garbage cans... I want out. The city gets inside of you and tricks you. It makes you think New York is normal, that all other cities are perversion of this one, true city. It makes you think that this is the way it is and must be... when really it seems that life is a lot easier elsewhere.

It's hard here.

On the other hand... the struggle makes it sweeter, right? In the six months I lived in Santiago, I learned that you (at least I do) have to leave the city at least every six weeks. Cities aren't natural, which doesn't mean they're not fantastic... so my new year starts with big new plans. 2004 was about learning that I can have an office job and that in many ways stability can feel good and not boring. For awhile, I flourished. And then I started to feel trapped, looking into the next week was always fine, but beyond that and I'd start to see a lifetime of doing things I didn't want to do. And being envious of others doing the things I like to do. (note: while I do love a good internet search, 8 hours/day in front of a computer does not count as 'things I like to do.' Being abused by employer also does not count.) And so. I am quitting. And going to Peru. And then having no employment stability. And going to Tanzania. And then no plan. And these things feel crazy except I don't think they really are, because while now I know stability can work for me, I've also learned it's not necessary. And the biggest upshot of stability makes me crave difference and adventure and change. And so here I go.