Something that people ask me frequently: where are your adventures taking you next?I don’t know, really. I was preparing myself for a journey of settling down into a life that I thought I wanted. It turns out that I was wrong about wanting it, and I didn’t arm myself with a backup plan. Now I find myself in a space of wanting to continue traveling, but also grappling with the self-imposed expectations of having reached my 30s without any semblance of a career path, savings, relationship, any of the things I thought I would certainly have by now.I’ve reached the point where I’m not sure I would even know how to do those things if I tried. I just finished watching a snippet of a talk where the presenter spoke on the statistics supporting the likelihood of what happens in your 20s setting the tone for the rest of your life. It’s something that crosses my mind frequently; will I be able to adopt and adjust to a more sustainable lifestyle for myself, or am I simply wired to be a wanderer forever?Lately, I’ve been wondering if I have it in me to stay in one place and do one thing for an extended period of time. The consideration alone causes my body to sag and age. The bags beneath my eyes grow deeper with every day that I wake up and think to myself, “maybe this is just what it is for me.”But that can’t be right- can it? Am I truly settling into a life of monotony, where I work at a job and go home to make dinner, shower, and sleep?Nah. It doesn’t feel real. It feels like a temporary setback in the journey of my life. Which is what, may I ask? What kind of road will I follow?It occurred to me tonight that I don’t tend to look at this life as a series of acquisitions and achievements to be earned. This experience that I’m in right now, working a 9-5 job, is simply the experience that I have checked out currently from the library of life.I’ve tried so many things and met so many people, yet it doesn’t quite feel as if I own those experiences, that they are mine to be hoarded and bragged about. I feel as if those experiences were all made to be shared, like a library book. The best part of that is being able to lend that book to somebody else, or recommend it as a good read to anybody who seems interested.The things I do are just my way of checking out from the vast collection of worldly experiences, sharing in the moment and moving along once I feel sated. Or perhaps I’ll keep reading it, over and over. Who knows, if I like it enough, I may even buy it.Life is too short not to at least give it a taste.
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