I'm in this conflicted place where the things that I want and want to do, don't really go together. Something I think that I feel and think and write about all the time, but I'm feeling...and thinking and writing about it again.
It becomes even harder to decide what to do, when all of the things will inevitably fight against one another; if something wins out, something else with inevitably lose. Tough times being a dreamer. And some may call it naive, but I don't believe that any of those things aren't possible, or likely; it just depends on where I set my sights.
I toil over the yearning to travel. I love being on the road, or at the airport. Even just in the waiting, I love it. Every minute. A short stint is always worth while, but I constantly think about taking a personal sabbatical of sorts. Just go somewhere, and then go somewhere from there...but one could argue that's just life. Then I get nagged by the pressure that that isn't really going anywhere; isn't really compounding on valuable life experience, in the career-building sense. And it's selfish. I don't want to travel because I want to be a missionary, I want to travel because I like to see different things. I want to travel because there's so much to see. It really is that simple. I want to see it. That's selfish.
I have a family that fortunately all lives centrally right where I am. I have a church that I'm involved in leadership at, and have been a part of the community for five years - that's more time invested than my college career! I have friends here that I'd miss desperately if I didn't get to see them on the regular. Uprooting my life to just travel kind of squashes the good things I have here. There are seasons for taking that hit, but for as much as I long to do that, this is not that season. The realization and subsequent coming to terms with that fact is a hard pill to swallow.
Then there's the age-old question of what do I want to do with my life and time. Being a barista, while fun, is not in fact my life's calling. It's satisfying for now, but I still spend my time thinking and dreaming of what I could do; might do. I love writing, if I could write and get paid the tiny little salary that I do as is - that'd be brilliant! Somehow finding those two things in combination also requires several years of experience, and maybe a Master's. If I jump on the grad school train, do I want to do it just so I can write and make ends meet? Again, seems selfish. I could probably do better things with my time than revel in my personal interests.
They're also not bad, or pursuits that society would see as self-seeking...but I do. I guess I'm self-conflicted; living in the tension of being an ever-curious, wanderlustful, depth-seeking, people-person (so many hyphens...).
