Well hello, new year. Hello, new little category to the right that is mostly empty under the drop-down arrow titled "2012". Hello, tabula rasa activity log on facebook. This is rather a nice feeling. I know it's kind of silly to think that everything changes from 11:59 PM on December 31st to 12:00 AM on January 1st... but right now I feel a rather nice clean feeling about life.
Also, if you haven't noticed, it is not Tuesday - which means that I'm still in the mountains in an over-heated 3-story "cabin" north of Lake Tahoe. We discovered a few days ago, however, that there actually IS internet here - and though I've been trying not to abuse it, I figured that I might as well take an afternoon to write to you. It's been a lovely week up here, although I have done only about 1 billionth of the reading that I wanted to do. Oddly enough, family, babies, and certain card games seem to take up the majority of the time. But that's alright. I'm trying to turn from my hermit-ways and enjoy it all while I have it. Also, I've been thinking a lot about the next few months and have decided to make this spring semester my best yet. I've already made plans with Kate to go jogging every morning (we'll see how long that actually lasts... but for now, it's a plan). This means that I will be waking up earlier, taking a shower when normal people do, and (provided I can get a job soon) working normal-people hours. I will then come home, drink coffee, and read or write to my heart's content. I have my doubts about all of this idealness, but then - why not? Human willpower is an incredible thing. I'm sure that a peaceful, productive lifestyle is quite possible. I just have to not doubt myself.
I've also been thinking about what to say for that promised update. And I have decided that I'm not going to write it. None of it was really positive or useful or good to dwell on - and, realistically, some of it will probably pop up again. And maybe I'll be in the mood to write about it then. I just feel like there's no point in going back to old thoughts and feelings and grumblings, no matter how poetic they were - and this isn't just because it's a new year. I've been realizing that for awhile. There's really no point in holding onto the frustrating things that I often do. As long as my mind and heart are feeling clean-slate, I shall follow that path and not muddy my thinking with old problems. I hope that I will hold myself to that.
At 11:55 PM on New Year's Eve, it's usually tradition for the family to sit around the table and (with one eye on the clock) talk about New Year's resolutions. While I didn't actually list any, I was very aware of the fact that the family was counting "travel" as my top priority. I have mixed feelings about this. It's been occurring to me more and more lately that traveling - or being the "world traveler", as I've come to be known, thanks to Katrina's films - has become my "thing". That's how a lot of people think of me. And of course, the vain part of me likes to have a cool label that everyone knows about - like being the girl with fabulous earrings, or the red scarf. That sort of thing makes me feel good, like there's at least one part of me that is absolutely true. But recently it's started to make me feel very strange. It's as if everyone has just begun to assume that I'll run out on them after a while - like I'm not capable of staying in one place. I know that's a little melodramatic of me; I don't actually feel that that's entirely true. It's just the best way that I know how to describe the feeling that all of this gives me.
Anyway - that was a rabbit trail. But I started saying all of that because it's been making me kind of sad lately. Then last night, when my family kept suggesting that "traveling" is my New Year's resolution, I realized something. I will be doing a lot of traveling - that's just a fact. I'll be leaving home for big trips more than once in the next 12 months. But I think that it's more appropriate to think of these adventures not as new departures, but new arrivals. New home-comings. I remember thinking that Prague felt like home, that first time in 2010 when I found Charles Bridge and fell in love with a city. If I think of all these trips as just another occasion of leaving home, of course I'll feel weird and sad. I think, though, that traveling should never be about leaving. There's a line in "Lies" by the Avett Brothers that goes something like, "So if you run make sure you run to something, and not away from." A trip focused on leaving something behind is bound to be frustrating, I think, because we can never really leave who we are or where we come from. So in this upcoming year and in all of these upcoming adventures, I am determined to change my thinking. I will consider traveling only as a way of finding new places to come home to.
Happy New Year.
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