Living the dream.

Today I'm not exactly content with my life.

Although new to the blogger world, I'm quickly accumulating (or "following" as the locals call it) blogs that my friends are posting. When I say friends, I mean people I have met in college who have pursued a much bolder path than me. Two dear friends are in Hong Kong for two years, one is in England, and one-- I just found out-- is in the Dominican Republic. And here I am...

in Alabama.

Sure, I enjoy my internship. I'm learning, and I love the people I work with (although, I'm quite certain that I do not want to work in social work). And yes, I'm looking forward to grad school, assuming I get in. But there is no adventure here.

Craziest thing I've done all week: Chinese take-out and Season 1 of Friends.

I don't know exactly what I want, and I know I can't up and leave the sanctuary of my home alone. But there's a longing within me... I want to build houses in Africa, or work in a college ministry in England, or be a travel guide in Sweden, or teach English classes in Mexico. I'm not sure the timing is right, but in the meantime I'm squirming under the (caution: melodrama ahead) oppression of living here in my comfort zone.

I've travelled far from home and more often than most, which creates an internal struggle like you wouldn't believe. On the one hand, I feel like a prat complaining that I'm not out there somewhere on a safari or life-changing adventure. On the other, I am not innocent anymore. I have felt the surge of energy as you step out of the cab onto a cobbled Swedish street, felt my heart race as I boarded the tube in frenzied London, and felt chill bumps cover my arms as I stared up at the Roman Coliseum. And from time to time, I can barely stand it. I want so badly to go back, to see more, to do more, to revisit things as a traveller rather than a foreigner. I have this overwhelming sense of, "If I knew then what I know now..." and I want to do it all over again. At the very same time, though, I want to see everything I've never seen before... the Eiffel Tower, the Greek ruins, the Wall of China...

Back here in reality, I'm sitting at a cubicle in Small Town, Alabama. Tonight I'll teach a class of people my parents' age; they'll be more interested in telling me about their children or asking about my own dating life than listening to me give them advice about their own. And who can blame them? I'll cap off the night with So You Think You Can Dance and a trip to the gym. All the while knowing that across the "big pond" my friends are discovering life in Europe, Asia, and so forth.

My apologies for this depressing post. Someone please send me somewhere.