Fuzzy Brain, Achy Head, Sniffly Nose

Note: Today I’m lying in bed and expect to be doing so for the foreseeable future. I’m not a good sicky. I’m grumpy and impatient and horribly disappointed that I’m missing out on beautiful weather, helping my dad move and paint and set up the new house. In short: my mood is on the low side. Keep that in mind while reading this post…

So, it’s been a month now that I’ve been home. Am I home yet? I think so. Want to know how I know? Because I’m forgetting how it felt already.

My memories of my trip are clear and beautiful. I love thinking about my travels and pondering some of the harder questions I came up against, as well as dreaming of returning to the most incredible places. But that feeling, the physical and emotional feeling of being “footloose and fancy-free” and of obtaining a glimmering understanding of a wider world… well, that feeling is fading fast.

Since being home, I’ve visited many friends and told many of my stories. My ideas of what to do with myself – both in the coming months and in the coming years – have been as varied as doing more traveling to Puerto Rico, Nepal, England or within the US, all the way to getting a job with a space systems contractor. In between there’s Peace Corps, hiding out for the winter in a cabin in Minnesota to write, getting a job quick just to start earning again, or bussing up to New York City to join the Occupation there.

That is to say… I have no idea what’s next. And I realize that my options are broad and that having options is not a bad thing, I really do. But I’m so frustrated! Before I left, all I wanted was to have a sense of some direction to take with my life, whether it be a career, a person, a place… whatever! And here I am, in exactly the same place.

My biggest fear is that the whole trip was nothing more than a vacation from life. I didn’t want it to be that. I don’t want it to have been that. There’s still part of me that believes it wasn’t that. And yet here I am, moving forward (or thinking about it, anyway) with nothing more than the same ideas I had before I did the trip.

Note: See note before post. I realize that I’m rather grumpy and negative at the moment because I feel rather awful.

On the positive side, I have a general idea of what to do with myself in the coming months:

*November: Help parents move in and settle in to their new house, which is beautiful. Move my own things from storage into their shed. Celebrate mom’s birthday. Go to brother’s for Thanksgiving. Relax. Work on applications and resumes.

*December: Lots of ideas. Go to NYC to check out the Occupy Wall Street action. Go on an REI weekend kayaking/camping trip in South Carolina. Go to Puerto Rico. Go to DC.

*January: Move up to a furnished apartment or basement in DC. Get a job to keep from going broke. Continue application processes.

 

Anyway, that’s it for now. Trying to end on an up note. Send me some healthy vibes!!