Candied Orange Peels: January 2012

http://matadornetwork.com/

The Matador Network is a community site for world travels that I just discovered today. This combined with the fact it's raining for the fifth day in a row, my boyfriend is swimming with manta-rays in warm Hawaiian waters tonight, and I haven't been more than ten miles from my home in over a month... I'm feeling a little stir crazy and ready to MOVE! I know technically I will be moving this fall, south to Olympia to attend Evergreen State College - but I feel so sedentary, my youthful energy going to waste. While I still can I want to hike, bus, ride, swim and dive my way around this beautiful blue planet I'm on. Isn't that what it's for? Home is nice and comfortable and I have really enjoyed planting roots in this emerald city, but I feel the winds are changing and I want to go with them. This stirring is not coming at a good time, as I mentioned before, I am lined up to complete my Bachelor's during these next two years at Evergreen then a Graduate Degree soon after - which are often accompanied with student loans. What follows is a 'career' to pay them off. Is this what I want? I know Danny is a member of the Church of the Unconventional, but I've always played it safe, believing that I was not a member of that elite society. My skill set nor ego was not large enough. But is it? I am quickly (and by quickly I mean slowly over four years of dating D. M. Blanchard) opening up my mind to the possibilities that not everything needs to be preplanned and ordinary.

I come from a family that stressed you were nothing without education, and dedicating one's life to years of schooling followed by a lifelong career were noble and rewarding tasks - vacations and hobbies are things you had when you retire. Then there's Danny's family. Our parent's could not be more different. Our mother's are polar opposites, as well as our fathers. Danny's dad, with only minimal community college but a lifetime of real-world experience, is running a successful company and is one of the most genuine people I know. I don't know a single relative who did not go to college.

Does this mean college and education is bad? Of course not, what I'm saying is that success (as I would have measure it by in the past) is not always through expensive pieces of paper, but how you live your life and the choices you make. I want to make good, balanced ones, and achieve both degrees and passport stamps. I want to become a well rounded and thoughtful old person. I want to be able to detach myself to catch the hypocrisies when they arise. I don't just want to be an 'American' but an 'Earthian'. Okay, maybe I'm getting a little carried away, but I'm feeling it. And as Martha Stewart would say, "that's a good thing."