Static Unpredictability

It’s weird. I’m actually more settled now than I have been in years… which is a good thing. But i’m feeling like i’m missing some component of unpredictability in my life. Could it be that the very thing I rail against is what makes me who I am? I’ve now lived in the same town for a year and a half. I’ve played 3 seasons of dodgeball and soccer. I have a growing social group. I’m 2 years into an industry in which i’m well-regarded and am making good money, with excellent prospects for the future. I’m 2 weeks into my new company, but so far I like it. It reminds me of my first company, which I never would’ve left (it disappeared in a corporate merger). The nightmare work scenario from last year and the early part of this year is fading away, slowly getting lost in the dust of time. I feel energetic and driven, more so than I have in quite a while. I’m in a good situation and I know it for once. There will be bumps along the road, and people are already warning me to watch out, but I feel like no matter what happens things will still be better than they were last year.

Yet there is this part of me that feels like i’m missing out on seeing the world. Like i’m playing it safe. I’ve always regarded myself and been regarding by others as a risk-taker, but it really doesn’t feel like that’s the path i’m following anymore. An old friend who i’ve lost touch with posted some pics online that I came across. It’s her in China, in New Zealand, and a couple of other places. I have another friend who moved to Germany and has been traveling around Europe. An exchange student from France who I met in college just got back from Guatemala.

While the majority of the people I know are doing more or less what I’m doing, I can’t help but wish I was doing what these select few are doing. What better way to find your place in the world than to see it firsthand. When I went to Brazil it really opened my eyes. I was fascinated with being immersed in a new culture. It was the most rewarding thing I’ve done in not-so-recent memory. I crave more of it. I want to be able to connect with new people and experience new things.

I want to blow up the safe, white-collar, fortune 500 world that I’ve created for myself. I want to tear down all of the walls that i’ve put up. I want to grow as a person, as a human. I’m staring down the tunnel right now, and I know exactly where it leads. I see it around me all day every day. I don’t know if I can do picket fences, summer bbqs and mowing the lawn. I don’t know if I can do wife and kids and parent-teacher conferences.

I want to pause life