Sometimes, when I'm by myself my mind begins to wander. My mind is almost always wandering, but I do keep it on a short leash. But there are roads that need to be traveled, and if you are unwilling to actively pursue them eventually I think the forces at work will nudge you along in that direction, no matter how much you may try to resist it. This weekend was one such one for me. Stemming from the departure of a friend who has decided, in the name of love and adventure, to leave the country and move to the other side of the world. Oddly he's going to place that I had already been and am well familiar with, but ultimately I chose to come back. He's going for who knows how long, quite possibly for good. I admire that kind of courage, diving into a world far from all he knows including family, friends, country, even common language. And he seems nothing but excited about it. Upon receiving that news my initial reaction was "Wow, I could never do something like that." But upon further reflection, I realized that in a certain sense I'd already had, twice.

The first time came right after I graduated from high school, and all I wanted to do was escape. And I did. I chose to go to college in a city many times larger than the one I grew up in. I had never once been there. I knew nothing about it. I didn't know a single soul. And to top it off I wasn't exactly the happiest of people when I went. It was hard, but in the end I think it was worth it. Then a few short years later I left that world to go down to South America. And for eight straight months I had no home and couldn't communicate as well I'd been accustomed to all my life. Parts of it were hard, but so much of it was absolutely incredible. And in the end I think it was worth it.

Well those stages of life are over and I have entered into adulthood. So much has happened, and I'm not even twenty-four. But time has passed and things have happened. And things haven't happened, and I feel at the edge of an impasse. In the past year I've been feeling like my internal values have been changing. Situations and people have forced me to ask questions, questions with answers that are not easy. But my own internal values are important to me, and if they lead me in a direction that I originally had not anticipated it would be a betrayal not to honor them.

But the path never seems to be truly clear. There are very few things I can be completely certain of in this world. But there must be more. I've been spending this last year many times saying "Someday..." Well someday is not here yet, and how many times do I have to think "Someday I will..." before "someday" becomes "today"?