Swim… until you can’t see land.

Sometimes I stay up late at night asking myself really important questions like – What the fuck is the point, of anything? Why did I lie about that thing in 7th grade? Will I ever find another faux leather jacket like the one someone stole from me in Australia?

These questions take on more and more weight as the night progresses into morning. Eventually, I lull myself to sleep and when I wake up those are not the pressing issues of my mind. See, in the morning, I don’t ask the question “what is the point?” By the dawn light I know, there is no point, and the point they’re selling is always the wrong one.

However, we are bred to follow, accept, not ask questions and not deviate from the plan. In a way we are kind of living in one of those frightening futuristic novels threatening “big brother” and then we close the book and laugh and think “ha, what kind of dummies would let that happen?”

And here we are.

We all kind of know it, too. Which is what makes this whole situation even more perverse. My quest for a while now has been to disprove the theory of “Content in the Mundane.” For so long, I’ve believed that anyone who is not living righteously or adventurously was secretly sad and depressed and hated their lives.

I even wrote about it in my early blogs. Now, that I’m a little bit older, better travelled and more realized I understand modern day duality a bit clearer.

My favorite word of late has been “variables.” Life is full of them – every situation is full of them, that’s what makes everything so much more exciting. Another favorite of mine is circumstances. So let’s say circumstances is the obstacle course and the variables are the competitors, the water that shoots out of the cannon or the gladiator that pops up with a jousting stick to knock you off course.

So, you see this obstacle course and you think, imagine, play or visualize what it’s like to go through it, but once you get in it nothing is what it seems. That’s what life is. We think we got this, we think we have a set course, and BOOM! Diamond comes out of the blue and tackles you down the pyramid.

(Clearly my American Gladiators memories are a little fuzzy, but you get the idea)

Then to top this whole obstacle course ordeal off with – there’s a fucking audience. Everyone watching judging, whispering to the person next to them how they could do better. And somehow, you know that. You know they’re talking about you. And you care.

You think about all the times you were a good samaritan. All the times you wiped up the spilled coffee on the counter in the break room at work, with no recognition. And now you want to be seen for that, instead of as a person getting their ass kicked on a padded playground.

See, it’s LIKE real life, but that’s not real life. For a lot of reasons – 1) Life isn’t padded. 2) No one is REALLY watching you all the time, and when they are it’s because they don’t know what the hell they’re doing either. Like in a dance recital, or the waiting room in the Vietnam Embassay.

I’ve talked about how traveller’s do this. We look around and compare. Which is what I love most about where I am at in my own life – because now I don’t give a shit. I don’t care what people think when they try to gage me up. I have my struggles, as much as they have theirs.

Right now is an interesting cross road for me, as a traveller and a woman in her 30’s. I’m at the end of the trip – just a little over 2 months left. And it’s all planned, and mostly paid for. I will be delivered to my home country, to be reunited with my family and a lot of friends I haven’t seen in a while. I’m leaving NZ, where I really didn’t have much luck, for what I was looking for.

I was hoping to come here and to make enough money that I could travel in style, get home, stay for a while and then head back out again. However, I feel like the beacon lights have been turned on and I feel as if I almost need to go home and stay. Family is a priority, and every day we get older. But also, the decision to settle down and make a life just seems repulsive to me at the same time. Maybe it’s just the idea of living in NYC again, and comparing it to what it was like when I was in my early 20’s and really just a hot mess, melted.

In a way I almost feel like I’m trying to get back to the beginning, where I just don’t give a shit what everything means, what the point of life is, or why people act the way they do. I don’t want to know. I want to appreciate. I want to love everything and everybody with out the pre-tense of what I already know and learned.

Everyone is fighting all the time. There’s nothing, anyone can say that will not offend any body and every body is always on the defensive. Like we have to have a campaign to say that BLACK LIVES MATTER. This is something that is happening. I use to despise the people I knew in LA that were so superficial and never picked up a newspaper and always wanted to talk about menial shit, but now I’m jealous of that.

Not that I would choose to not think anymore, but I wish that we could choose to think differently. I am a very lonely person, because my thoughts always stray to this kind of bullshit. Honestly, when I very first started this blog I wanted it to be funny, but to me comedy only comes out in the absolute best or the absolute worst of me. Then, I wanted to do an upbeat travel blog for you guys about what it’s like to be in so many different countries.

Yet, it never turns out differently, it’s always this. Just a grenade of social disgust and existential ramblings, with my writing to myself in hopes of figuring something of use, out. So let’s get back to my core belief – painful honesty.

I’m a little scared about the next 2 months. My NZ experience did a 180 2 weeks ago, where I finally got offered a full time job (that I would have happily accepted), I started branching out with new people, and I stopped giving a shit about some other negative forces and just let them go.

Alas, it’s time to leave. I don’t have enough money for my trip. This I’ve known for a long time, but I may have enough to scrape by. So that’s been an incredible stresser for such a long time. However, still not a deal breaker. I will be travelling with my best friend. That scares me a little bit. I’ve heard bad stories about travelling with best friends. I can’t imagine it getting awkward, but I can’t really imagine anything any more. I know our plan, but I am unable to fill in the details. Which may be the ultimate best thing as to not be dissapointed with false expectations of the Portugeuse sun or nights out in Berlin.

But I do think that what scares me most is what it will be like to step off the plane in the US again after 21 months of travel. I have no idea what to expect, I’m afraid of being disappointed. I don’t even mean like Christmas morning disappointed (because let’s face it Christmas is always disappointing since it can never be as warm, loving and perfect as any John Hughes movie), I mean like checking your phone on a bad day and not having a text, an email or a facebook message from your crush. Because that’s much more devastating. (You know it’s true)

The last couple of weeks were great, where I could really finally let go of the need to make more money and the stress of finding work. Now I’m in a lull again, before I head out on this around the world adventure where I will literally get to see the majority of my best friends over the next 2 months.

Why am I not jumping out of my skin excited? Why am I nervous?

I presume it’s the circumstance + variable syndrome. I can see it, but can’t yet feel it. Perhaps this is a bigger step than I realize in the sense that this may be a time when I don’t over anticipate or expect any greatness other than just letting it unfold as it should. My heart wants to be in too many places right now. I’ve been seeing that as a burden, but it truly is a blessing….

Too many to love.

I’m broke, but luckily, love is free.

❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤