WANDERLUST: 2011: Ambiguous Future

Flash back to December 31, 2009. I was in Denver at a house party of people that I didn't know very well. Annoyed that I couldn't drink because I was driving. Midnight came and 2010 started. I was unhappy working in a dead-end job that was crushing my soul, my then boyfriend was leaving the country without me and I was still living in the same town that I went to university. I was feeling lost, trapped and extremely nervous about what was going to happen in the next year. I never had the idea I was going to travel the world in the next 12 future months.

Flash forward to December 31, 2010. I spent the night celebrating in the middle east in Tel Aviv, this time at a bar with my best friend and again a bunch of people I didn't know very well. I wasn't sober. Midnight came and 2011 started. I was happy as I had been traveling for ten months straight, exploring four continents. I was feeling bitter sweet to return to the USA in less than two weeks, there are too many options of things to do in the future and extremely nervous about what is going to happen this year.

Obviously a lot can change in a year and things that you wish would change stay the same. I started this year literally thousands of miles away from any thought that I had last winter. I never imagined that I would leave my job without another job, a plan or an acceptance to graduate school. Finding the strength to do just that was the salvation that I needed to remember how dynamic life can be and that there is no such thing as being cornered into a job or a life at 24. You can leave and start over.

I hoped that at the beginning of 2011 I would be less confused and nervous for the future. Instead, I am probably more nervous and confused, as I am sitting here apprehensively waiting for someone else to decide my future. An anonymous figure in charge is sitting in their office, my life sitting in their hands, packaged into a 10 page application and they get to decide the course of the next two to three years of my life with a simple accepted or denied.

And then there is the fact that although I have applied to graduate school, I still wonder if it is the right decision for my future. Am I boxing myself into a life of 40 hour work weeks, 2 weeks of vacation a year and the ability to only practice in the USA? Do I want to live in the USA? Will this summer be the last time I have to travel/live abroad/learn a language for the next 50 years? Is my life over until I retire starting in September?

Then I am reminded: 12 months can change your life and you can end up somewhere you never thought you would be. In this lies comfort and terror as I have no inkling where I will be December 31, 2011. The only thing I know is it very well could be the last place I expect.

Sometimes I wish I could predict the future and know that everything will be OK... But life doesn't work like that and all you can count on is uncertainty and that things will change in the most unpredictable ways. I just hope that the changes that 2011 bring are the ones that bring me closer to happiness and stability.

Here's to a good year and not knowing where I'll be, who I'll be with or what I'll be doing December 31, 2012!

2010 in Review