Can't Sleep.

Settling is not something I'm good at.
While my life has pushed me in many directions, begging for a choice from either myself or someone else to really decide the fate of what's to come, I have never been one to truly want to settle for the mediocrity of how things can be.
Routines, while stable, end up seeming boring and claustrophobic to me in the end, driving me from everything that is comfortable, pushing everything away and especially the people that surround me at that time.

Why should I settle for what's easy, when I know there is so much more out there, so much more that could be better for me?
Settling for me is more than just settling for the right person, it's settling for the circumstances that coincide with that. Settling for the comfort of the environment, the schedules, the mundane lifestyles of the city life that seem to unfold in front of me with ease.
Settling, while it's a part of our human nature, seems to be something that I strive to push away with every ounce of my being when I start to feel it.

The ache to flee, to run from everything that I've grown to know, is overwhelming at times.
How does one break away without hurting everyone else too much?
You can't break away without some collateral damage, especially in the ways of love. Being attached is the ultimate settling and I've done that before, but while my heart wanted to stay, my whole body was itching to leave. My body, involuntarily secluding myself, being absent in my affection towards who I had known before, always made things easier, but at the same time, so much messier.

Life and love, you should never settle for the things that seem too easy, because the things that are most worth it in life are so much harder to grasp, so much more difficult to hold on to. Putting yourself out there, making an effort, being bold, that's what life is about.
People always say follow your passion and sometimes that may not be true, but the thing about it is, sometimes you can't just give up.
You can't settle for what you feel isn't right. Keep searching for those feelings in life that make everything seem like it's in place, where the puzzle is complete.

I am always missing pieces, but I won't give up until I'm all put together. Settling has never been an option for me, so why would I start letting it be now?

Life as I Know It

You know what's funny (but not really that funny) is that it took me 24 and a half years to figure out that I need to let go of my stupid un-spontaneous nature and just let go.
I need to let go and do what I want to do.
Life is about more than just letting the world tell you to get a job and do that for the rest of your life, maybe making some good memories along the way, but also wasting away in something you really don't give a shit about.

I am not going to do that anymore. It is decided. While still not entirely spontaneous, I have planned out the rest of my year.
My friends from different states are coming to visit soon and I couldn't be more excited!
Weddings and what not in July, big trip to Thailand after that.
Staying around till our big deadline in October (and saving as much money as I can along the way) and then in November I'm gone.

Happy Birthday to me, I'm leaving the very first part of November to get the hell out of here.
Anywhere has been calling my name for the last 2 years at least and it's finally time to go.
I'm fed up, exhausted, and just plain done with everything that I'm so used to.
Haven't you ever just needed a change? Of scenery, of people, of life.

Nepal is where I have found a great opportunity to volunteer and stay for 3 months. While yes, I will be paying my whole way to be there, in the end it will be entirely worth it for many reasons.
Hopefully after that, Tibet? Maybe...if that works out for next year.
I wish I hadn't been such a terrible person and turned it down while I had the chance for this year, but next year I will be ready if it comes available to me.
I have to move home to my moms and get all my crap together, but once the time hits, I'm outta here.
For awhile I'm hoping.

Kathmandu, I'm coming for you. Be ready, November 2016.

The beginning - 2016

Have you ever had to make an important decision that's going to affect your immediate future in just a couple months?

2016 has started out with a bang and I wouldn't necessarily say it's of the good kind.
Newly single, but not wanting to be and struggling to figure out what it is I want and where I'm going.

Who knew that 24 would be my most difficult year for decisions and love. I didn't have a clue...

Yes, I've put myself in this precarious position. Wanting to stay so badly to figure things out (hopefully) with the guy I hurt, but also having to choose if leaving is still a better fit for me.

I finally heard back about the opportunity I was so ready for at the end of December, being able to go and teach two young girls in Tibet.
But having so much time to think about things, I've realized a very key things as to why the flame I had for this has died down, I was trying to run away from everything here.
Not because anything was bad, but because I was feeling claustrophobic. I was feeling suffocated by everything here. My work, my friends, my relationship, and not because anything was going wrong, but because I just felt like I wasn't doing what I really wanted.

I'm not the best at explaining how I feel, but right now, I can honestly say that I am extremely exhausted.
I'm tired and I'm still struggling to put myself together after my love life crumbled.
I'm tired of pushing myself away, when in reality, that's not what I wanted at all.

I've been trying to run away from things for awhile now. Things get too serious, I panic and look for a way out, while pulling back and creating this giant bubble around myself.

Is this a test? What is the right answer for me?
Go or stay?

My relationship seems to be over..but I am still not sure if I want to go. This year is stressing me out.
What more, is that the timing of everything has to be quick.
Today is the day for decisions and I don't think I'm quite ready to make them.

I want love. I want adventure. But I also want to stay sane this year. What's next?

Moving on.

Life is all about one thing. Moving on.
We're always moving on from one thing to the next, from one person to another, and from one place across to somewhere else.

I've always been the one waiting, waiting for something that's a potentially great thing. What I don't do is look at what's right in front of my face most of the time, which is what I found out. He's already there.

The waiting game has never been one I like to play and waiting on a guy to actually want me is like waiting for some rain in the desert. Probably not going to happen. I was so blind to not see that I already had what I wanted and needed.

Waiting is not worth it for me anymore, although I'm still entirely confused about my future.
I've decided on the guy, but I haven't decided on where I'm going to go next year.
I want to get away, far away. To live elsewhere for a bit, even though I plan to come back.
I'm just not sure how it's going to work quite yet.
My plans are up in the air, literally, in my head.

The guy I'm planning on may not want to be a part of my outrageous plans to get away.
What if he doesn't?
I'll probably end up a lonely cat lady. Most likely, but hopefully with big cats, like a lion or a tiger.
Guys just don't always fit into my plans and I guess for now at least I can say it was fun for the time being, right?

See, I'm scatterbrained. So much going on at once. Boys, plans, travel, animals, and food. Didn't I say food?

My life is a chaotic whirlwind, mostly inside my head, that nobody knows about.
That's all.
That's it.

Life is crazy and amazing and not always what you expect. That's what I'm planning on I guess, for the unexpected. But I'm always hoping for what I want.
A life of travel and love and animals and food.
That would be ok with me.
But if life is unexpected, it's probably going to be me, alone, traveling, scraping by and doing what I can to live out my life the way I want. Alone.

Life is crazy.

Cheers to yours.

Life vs. Love

I love to travel and I love where I grew up, really I could be anywhere but in the end I'm sure I'd always want to come home in the end.
Just because I love my home, doesn't mean I have to stay there forever. That seems to be the thing that has been weighing on my thoughts lately, the decision people have to make between either following what they truly want to do or staying back and settling for what they have.

The question I have is, why does there have to be a choice?

Recently, I signed up for another trip out of the country with a group I've traveled with before, EF College Break.
My family and friends supported me and were even envious of my travels, past and future.
One of my friends decided that she would love to go with me and talked through the process with her husband and family to see if she could do it. Everyone was for it and she was entirely excited to be able to go with me, financially she would have to figure it out, but traveling is so worth it!

Today, I was talking to her about the trip and she thought for some reason it was full and I told her she had just forgotten to check a box and it was still available (it's over a year away, there would be plenty of time) and I reminded her of the dates.

She promptly texted me back to say, "Oh, I can't go those dates, that's my anniversary."
I was a little shocked, but I thought I could reason with her by suggesting she'll have many more and that when will she have an opportunity to do this again?
Again, her reply was blunt, "that's not how we see things."

I can tell you now that I'm still surprised at her answer. That an anniversary would stop her from venturing out and doing something she's always wanted to do.
I know she'll never get this chance again and she's throwing it all away for an anniversary that comes around every single year.
She tried to get me to change dates, but I said no. I planned this because this is when I wanted to go, I'm not changing them, it would be more expensive to go earlier and I can't go later for multiple reasons.

This is the conundrum, why is she willing to settle for so much less than what she actually wants?
Love is extremely important in life, but life without adventure and happiness in living out your dreams, that's not a very great life even with love.
Her husband doesn't like to travel and I know they'll never go that far away. So I will most likely be off by myself, which is entirely fine by me.
I feel sad for her, because I just don't see why an anniversary is so much more important.

I love love, but I also love to travel in my life. If my love doesn't want to come, I'll go alone, whenever I want.
Maybe that's just the independent side of me, maybe I just don't care, maybe I'm slightly selfish, but I've settled too much in my life already to not follow my dreams and to let people drag me down.

I can love someone and travel on my own, that's the beauty of life. It's sad some people put so much stake in what they have just right in front of them when there's so much more to the world than that.

I know that I'm sort of just ranting now, but it's hard to help it.
Anyways, from my life to yours.

Cheers and safe travels!

Travel: Journeying from place to place

In all of my life, the one thing (I've been realizing more than anything lately) that I want to do with my life, is travel.
I want to go, to get out, to live and to see.
There's so much here for me, in the Seattle area. Work, friends, family.
But I'm so tired of being here, stuck. I'm tired of being stationary and I want to be mobile.
I think I'm going to have to sign up for a trip every year, if not every other year so that I can get out of here, especially to further off places, that's what I mean.
Next year I'm taking a trip back to Europe, Germany, Italy and Switzerland that I keep getting more and more excited about, although more and more nervous as well.
I'm more nervous because I'll be going with a group of people I don't know and I tend to be a little shy at first.
I know that it will be an amazing thing for me though and everyone I've told so far is entirely jealous, but anyone can do it! I just so happened to have enough courage to sign up and not back out of it.

Anyways.
A part from that, I will travel as much as I can throughout my lifetime.
I want to go to Thailand and be a part and witness the lantern festival.
I want to go to New Zealand to see where Lord of the Rings was filmed.
I want to ride an elephant in Malaysia.
Sit and soak up the beaches in the Bahamas.
See the great ruins of Machu Picchu.
Witness the running of the bulls in Spain.

I just want to go. To see. To hear. To be somewhere else for a little bit.