Where in the world?

"You know that point in your life when you realize the house you grew up in isn't home anymore? All of the sudden, even though you have some place where you put your shit, that idea of home is gone." 

Zach Braff as Andrew Largeman in Garden State

In terms of making the big choices, it's often hard to imagine yourself outside of the area you're already in. While this is true in several respects, I am specifically referring to the area of place, of physical location. The world's size tends to wax and wane in my mind's capacity to fathom it, and while the options seem overwhelming at times, sometimes it makes just as much sense to stay put as it does to get gone.


In general, I have pretty much lived in the same place my entire life. I took a brief four-year hiatus in college, a venture that brought me to an even smaller town just outside of Pittsburgh. An even shorter gap of time (though a much longer journey) brought me to the jaws of Los Angeles, a city that dazzled but did not fool me. I have spent little chunks of life in other countries, Greece, England, Nicaragua, Ireland, a tour of the Caribbean islands via cruise ship. All of these escapades that one way or another returned me to Columbus, New Jersey, whether by the trip's end, lack of funds to support otherwise, or a general craving for familiarity. 


Still, there's the ever-present possibility of growing bored with a certain place, of exhausting your options there and deciding it's time to move forward or out or onto something new. (Again, speaking specifically to the sense of where to be, though the broader understandings certainly apply.) For example, three and a half years in the run-down suburb of Beaver Falls in the western Pennsylvania wilderness (save for that 30-mile trek into the city for whoever could muster up the energy to brave the October to April winter) was enough for me. While I eventually and quite possibly too late discovered the advantages and charms of the tiny bridge-bound city, and while the town I was originally from did not exactly scream URBAN, it was time to go. Several friends graduated and decided to move into the area and find out what the place had left for them. Even before I turned my tassel, I was imagining something new.


That's just an illustration of the ways we can soak up what we need from where we are and then continue on our way. I went, I learned, I re-learned, I received my degree, and departed. Yes, you might be wondering if it's wandering backwards to end up where I started. Maybe, maybe not. In some ways yes, in some ways no. At the time, I felt I didn't have a real choice, jobless and in all senses of the word, broke. The point is, what now? While I've traveled a decent amount for someone my age, though not as much as I imagined I would have by now, passport stamped to completion, there is still a greater part of the world that I know nothing about. How then do we choose where we want to cultivate roots? Even just the WORD roots is terrifying, mainly because I tend to think that by nature, we are not the type to stay settled permanently. Not in the strain that we lack the ability to commit or stay focused, but in the sense that there is too much out there for us to be content with only one fraction of all that is possible. This mindset, I am finding out, positively riddles us with curiosity, and yet negatively fights our ability to be satisfied with limited exploration. 


If I were to make a choice on the basics, I suppose I would start with "Where will I find work?" These days, the answer to that question is, initially, nowhere, and then additionally, wherever you CHOOSE to find it. People are creating their own avenues of income in times that are trying, some of which succeed, and others that find themselves starting from scratch on repeat. However, more specifically, if you are engaged in a certain type of work, such as writing, you will probably not venture into a rural town in Nebraska. Right? (Don't expect an answer from me, actually, because I am more or less asking these questions for the sake of my own indecision.) 


How can you want to be somewhere you've never been before? And, how can you want to stay somewhere you could follow with your eyes closed? Do we base our decision on the major cities of the country, Chicago (brr), New York (?!), Los Angeles (yikes), Houston (yee-haw?), etc? OR, what of the cities of the WORLD, if we're willing to open our minds just that much? 


With the work world being what it is, as well as just the general state of the planet, the taxes, the expenses of merely being alive, these days I'm more apt to make a location decision based on the weather. That being said, you're likely to any day find me baking pineapple upside-down cakes somewhere along the equator. The fact is, we don't know about a place until we've really been there, until we've given it a chance to prove it's homeyness, however temporary that may turn out to be. Still, certain environments scare me. I'm not a city girl as much as I don't belong in the center of a corn field, calling the cows to come home. Despite where this might land me, I'm also not a happy medium. I have an adventurer's heart latched inside a body full of limitations. I am a free spirit that lives in a world that runs on capital and regulations, one that measures success in inches and dollar signs. I'd rather be happy than rich, I'd rather see trees than tall buildings. I'd rather walk than use public transportation. I'd rather be somewhere that makes it possible for me to donate all of my cold weather coats. 


Obviously, in the end, unless I decide to inhabit another world altogether, there are some compromises to consider. And actually, after all this, I still have no idea where we go from here. For the most part I suppose that when we know, we know. I don't really expect us all to wake up someday and suddenly know our place and our calling and our purpose. I just like to think that wherever it is, one day as we're wandering those streets or resting quietly in our rooms or ourselves that we'll just realize: here. And I would like to believe that that sensation will be based on more than what we do there, where we actually are, and who we know in town. Rather, it will be a reflection of that rediscovered comfort, of knowing that we have a place to go, to return to, after everything else.