I Rose Today

Looks like its going to be a really nice weekend and next week is shaping up to be really good also. I need to find stuff to do to occupy my time. I have been catching up with summer reading and am now reading Elizabeth Gilbert's, Committed in addition to Rushkoffs, Life, Inc. Went to see Eat, Pray, Love last week with Rosa. I enjoyed the movie but loved the book more as always. Sometimes I wish I could do something similar to Gilbert in the sense of just getting away and exploring. In her case, she was already an established writer and had the capacity to fund her exploration. In my case, I would have to close out my barely there IRA account just to be able to fund maybe three months someplace on a highly conservative budget. Then again, I'm still considering doing just that. There isn't much here for me or at least it feels that way. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the few who have chosen to remain in my life. With that said, it still is a lonely life filled with pockets of welcome excitement and adventure, followed by extremely long periods of isolation. It's kind of ironic that in this century we are connected to more people than even by texting, phone, email, Skype, etc., yet we are all so disconnected from each other. I would be very surprised if on the final day of my life there will be one person who truly understands perhaps 80 percent of who I am. That percentage may be too high considering that I am alone 95 percent of the time. LOL. In all seriousness, I have been revisiting the idea of possibly moving to another country. I've been thinking about Spain alot. Not sure why. I still am in the very basic stages of learning Spanish and am not sure how I will advance with learning the language since I can no longer afford lessons. I will figure out a way to make it work.

Perhaps in my poor woman's version of it all I have been able to be a little bit like Gilbert in the sense that all of my big adventures represented something pretty major in my life. The very first trip to Alaska came on the heels of medical testing. I didn't want to regret not doing all of the things I wanted and needed to do in this lifetime. I guess you could say that's where I began to live a life of no regrets. I don't have time right now to continue since I am meeting my father for lunch. We are working on our book together...the book about the latest adventure we took two years ago. Will revisit this post later tonight.

Sunday...12:53pm....so I didn't get back to finish this post last night as I got in later than expected. Working on this project with my dad will be interesting and fun. We both have such unique perspectives about the trip so it will be really special combining thoughts into one (or even two) books. Like him, I too have to go back into the journal I kept during that voyage and read it. Truth be told, in all my journals, I have never gone back to reread anything in them. I may just start doing so after this process as it may help me even further. Anywho, as I was saying earlier about the trips, all came at important stages for me. After the Alaska trip, several years passed where I was landlocked and I had convinced myself that I couldn't go anywhere. I was stuck. Finally in 2005 I had an epiphany and realized that I shouldn't wait on others anymore to care about me...I care about me. I took the trip to London and visited family that summer. It was my first international flight alone. The following year, I was fired from a position that I had been in for four years. The reason...not work performance but rather because I wouldn't drop a class I needed to take to complete my graduate class the following semester. My "boss" in all of her 26 year old wisdom felt that letting me leave work :30 minutes early once a week for ten weeks was too much of a hardship so she said I should just pay for another semester of school. I went to my class and the next day they decided to fire me. That Christmas, I was cruising in the Caribbean and spent my birthday on the beach in the Cayman Islands. I always wanted to do that. Every time I look at the picture from that day I feel happy...and free. I graduated the following semester with a 3.7 GPA. Two years later that entire department was fired due to company downsizing. Sorry they all lost their jobs. For some, that's karma.

The last trip, the one I fondly refer to as "my biggest adventure....so far" was the 30 day adventure. It was an unexpected trip for me. My father had his passage already booked and now I had the time to go. I guess you can say timing is everything. The trip, in part, provided me the opportunity to reconnect with humanity. In meeting so many different people from all over the world (onboard and in port), being away from home reminded me that even if I am often made to feel like a reject here, I still have the capacity to be accepted elsewhere. I believe my next big adventure will have me moving from the United States. It's been pretty lonely here for me for the last 20 years. While location doesn't determine if people will be around, for me, I think it may make a difference. Besides, if fate rules that I may be by myself, I might as well continue to explore areas of the world while helping others along the way in any way that I can....a traveling nomad so to speak. I certainly wouldn't be missed here. Only time will tell. OK. better get going...have some research and reading to do.