The Gypsy Soul was Stirred: Part 2

So in thinking more about my restlessness I've come up with a few thoughts. One is that it is simply the latest installment of the three year cycle and on some fundamental level I can feel it coming. Another is that this cycle has become habitual for me and since I know the three year mark is approaching, I feel restless. Are you feeling the chicken and egg vibe here? Really I think both of these are true and are not mutually exclusive. The trigger is no doubt New York City though. I used to think I knew that I would live there someday. It has always tugged at me but for whatever reason (it was impractical, irresponsible, too expensive, I was in school, there was a boy, there wasn't a boy..I could go on and on) I never made the leap.

I love the energy there, the pace and the creativity...good god the art! It speaks to me (and about a gazillion other people, I know. I'm not unique here, I get that). So all those years that I basically had total freedom and the luxury of making selfish choices, I didn't. I didn't choose it. I chose school and practicality, financial stability, a boy and then a smaller boy. During those years when my friends were on Dead tour, backpacking through Europe, moving "out West" for no apparent reason or otherwise not being "productive members of society," I was studying and working and staying the course. When I finally did veer off course it wasn't really off course, it was to get on someone else's course instead.

Don't get me wrong, it isn't like I wasn't having a lot of fun along the way*. I traveled, went to school in Costa Rica, I backpacked across Panama solo, I went on a thousand impromptu road trips to see music or just because I could. But I always made sure that I was back in time for class and that I had all my shifts covered at whatever bullshit job I was working. I also moved to Antigua alone to do my Master's research...that was certainly an adventure. But it was still work and productive adventures don't count I've decided.

* This is me at 21 on a rope swing on a beach in Costa Rica...swinging over a giant bonfire while drinking beer in the rain. That was fun.

Visiting New York is just a reminder of the path not taken...more like the path not even attempted. This is obviously not a disaster, but it brings out the mystic in me and I think about things like destiny and kismet and other things that I talked myself out of believing in years ago. I want to run away from home and be an irresponsible vagabond...but we all know I won't.

So this is the exact point at which writing a blog like this begins to feel completely narcissistic and ridiculous. I mean seriously, who needs to know this? Nobody. Really. Why are you reading this? Don't you have enough of your own problems? My dear brave (and sometimes infuriating!)friend has a giant tumor growing in her chest and I'm bellyaching about not living it up enough in my 20's? Good lord, go read something productive like how to build a birdhouse or how to green your cleaning products or something. This is utter nonsense. And even if it isn't, I don't have any answers. I'll be as surprised as anyone to see what happens next.