Wherever

Here are some messages I received on January 25, 2010:

"Happy Birthday! I hope you're having an awesome day wherever you are ;)"

"happy birthday! hope where ever you are, you are living it up!"

"Happy Birthday Mars! Hope you're keeping well wherever in the wide world you are."

"Hey love! Happy early cumpleaños... or 생일축하합니다 ?? I hope you are well wherever you are!!"

One would think that I was someplace exotic or mysterious on my birthday.

The truth is that "wherever" was in my hometown of Athens, Ohio.

~

Last month was a mental shitstorm of reflecting, evaluating, second-guessing and (hate to admit this) depression. 

No amount of kombucha, self-help books, tarot cards or horoscopes eased my anxiety.

Even a homage to Prince (a Raspberry Beret Birthday Party) failed to lift my spirits. If Prince can't help you, who can????

I avoided reality for a long time and there it was, like a harsh birthday spanking:

"I'm 28, homeless, jobless, clueless, and single."

I stated this to my best friend and she started to laugh, "That's not true! Jesus, don't be so dramatic. You are all those things by CHOICE because you've spent the last three years traveling and doing things that some of us only dream of."

She was absolutely correct but when you are having a pity party, reason is not invited.

~

Transitions aren't easy and I'm fearful of how this one might progress: first cell phone, next apartment, then job, then shackles. Settling down is more frightening to me than flying to Cancun and sneaking into Cuba (a plan that I've only recently dismissed).

But here's what is equally as scary as the "stable" path: missing my closest friend's wedding, not seeing my niece and nephew, talking to my dad on skype once every three weeks, NOT HAVING HEALTH INSURANCE and being terminally single.

I'm horrified of backpedaling, terrified of pedaling forward and refusing the kickstand. 

Thus, transitioning to....?

~

I would like to pose a question that plagued me this past month: For someone who spent the majority of 2009 with one backpack and no hairbrush getting rid of excess baggage should be easy, right?

Baggage is like personal possessions. It builds up without you noticing and at some point you look around and you wonder where it all came from. Can you move forward without sorting it out? Or perhaps hide it and skip off to a new environment?


I'll stop right there. I won't go into how I'm making sense of it or realizations I've had. I'll simply say that I'm slowly figuring out where I want to be and what I want to be doing-----> wherever I am---->whether with one backpack or no backpack, a huge suitcase, a hairbrush or no hairbrush at all.


~


Signing off  from Wherever, FL
-MARS, 28