After months...and months…and months of traveling, of quite literally living out of a suitcase or backpack, it’s time to just settle. Siiiigh. The ever-conflicting internal life forces within me never cease. When traveling, I find myself thinking of home. When home, I find myself planning my next adventure. It’s a curse of human nature, of a gypsy soul, of a wandering heart. I am taking refuge in my home in Cody for a while. I need a little bit of structure, schedule, maybe even a job (Okay, I guess being broke is a bit of encouragement for that too!) But alas, I am so incredibly happy with where I am in life.
I just spent the past couple weeks visiting friends in Austin and it was just what I needed. As far as I’m concerned, Austin is one of the best cities I’ve experienced. Maybe it had a little to do with my best friend being there, but it truly rocks. With a western hipster style, great live music every single night, amazing restaurants and food trucks, bountiful Goodwill stores, badass tattoo shops, and a mass influx of Montanans, it’s winning in every category. I drew so much energy and inspiration from the people closest to me, and have grown so much more in the past few weeks than I thought I could. I am actively living. Actively pursuing my dreams and being the person I want to be… and I must say, it feels great.
The time is now. I always tend to stray from the now-ness of life, always peeking back or looking forward. I hate to admit it, but it seems to take the close proximity of death to fully live. I recently lost a great friend, my best friend from my summer in Alaska. She was 25… and just…died. No matter how at peace with death you think you are, when it hits, it hits hard. The initial shock led me to just chuckle a little… I couldn’t process the reality. Then I broke. I spent nearly every single day with this girl for four months, had talked about coming to visit her in the fall just days before her death. And now… now all I have are memories and pictures and her sweatshirt she gave me as a parting gift, something I promised to give back when we saw each other next. It’s no wonder people have such a hard time coming to terms with death…we don’t even understand life. We don’t know how to live. Actually live. We live for tomorrow…for that goal that will definitely make us happier than we are now. We live for yesterday… for those lost loves, for the what ifs and the what could have been. But what about today? What about this very second? Are we living actively? Are we living profoundly? In the end, the only person who can answer that question for you is you. Cherish the people around you. Cherish each moment about you. Cherish every single thing you have and everything you don’t… because at the end of the day, you are already luckier than most people on this earth.
