The never-ending search for bluer skies

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how my relationships and circumstances  influence what I’m seeking in life at a particular moment. I notice that when I spend time with specific friends, family, strangers, I envision different parts of my life, different paths that don’t necessarily fit together or coincide in a way that makes sense. They’re not all mutually exclusive, exactly, but it’s forced me to zero in and think about what I really want in my deepest heart and how all of my desires come into play - when, where, and how.

And Is it all really what I want?

It’s been a year since I moved home from Los Angeles. It’s a decision I don’t regret and one I don’t contemplate often, except in regards to the few close friendships I made when I was there - people that I miss dearly. I’m grateful that even though Los Angeles didn’t live up to my expectations or embody what I thought I was looking for, it gave me something to rule out - a life I could say for certain that I didn’t want.

But that doesn’t mean I’ve figured it all out, either. I’m enjoying living in my hometown, on the whole - I have a few great friends here (including my best friend of 18 years), I love being this close to my family, am completely crazy about my job, and found myself a great guy who makes me really happy and treats me well. I love the open air and the stillness, something I really missed in the city.

But something’s missing. I’m still restless.

I can’t help but yearn for just a little more bustle, activity, and rich culture. A place where ambition runs through the vein of residents, where it’s not so odd duck for me to push off marriage and children for years more, after I’ve done more things for myself and have seen more of the corners of the Earth.

When I’m here at home, content with my boyfriend and my family, I can almost forget about the little tug in the back of my brain. I see marriage, children, wraparound porches, and acres of land. There is still no hurry at all - I don’t think that’ll change - but the yearn for something bigger and “better” is but a dim light.

Still, many of the people of Lycoming County and I don’t always see eye to eye when it comes to what we value. And while there’s nothing wrong with that, I remember what it felt like to be immersed in communities like Ithaca and Los Angeles that were more in tune to what made my heart feel fuller.

When I have deep conversations with my world-traveler best friend, Nicole, I’m often confronted with the harsh reality that I still haven’t seen much of our world. I’d like to see some of it now, instead of waiting until my (hypothetical) children are grown. While the experiences may not be any less rich at an older age, they would certainly be different. I’m desperate to at least start to see them with young eyes and a different perspective.

Then I think that maybe if I didn’t have children, I’d have so much time to live for myself and see as much as I wanted. And I’m not saying (at all) that having children isn’t living, but it’s certainly a different kind of living. Your kids come first, as it should be, and not reproducing obviously takes that factor out of the equation. And with massive amounts of student loan debt as far as the eye can see, I have a harder time imagining a life where I could have children and still manage to make a few dreams a reality.

The conflict is a real struggle that I haven’t figured out how to manage. There doesn’t seem to be enough time and space to create all the things I want to create, to love all the people I want to love, to see all the places I want to see. It’s overwhelming and crippling to want so much out of life that you have no idea where to start or how to manage expectations.

On my free nights, when I wanna write, create, or plan, I struggle to find a place to start - there’s so much and my head is overloaded. So instead of writing, creating, or planning, I watch a couple of hours of television and avoid it all for another day.

So how do I stop?

I’m under no expectation that voicing the crazy will help curb the behavior or assist me in figuring out what I want and how to achieve it, but I hope that the words at least make me a little more accountable.

Tonight, I’m starting a new pattern. I’m putting everything aside to focus on my book journey and mull about the possible  journey to Italy that I’m (hopefully) making with Nicole next year, now that my kickass freelance gig has seemed to come through, affording me the opportunity to do a little saving and a little more dreaming.

With any luck, a small step is just what I need.