What's outside the window?

"...Where ever I was I always found myself looking out the window wishing I was somewhere else - now I live outside the window" - Angelina Jolie

I am totally aware of how trite it sounds to say that one of the people I identify most with in the world is Angelina Jolie. I am actually somewhat embarrassed by it to the point where I have only mentioned the connection I feel with her to a handful of people. Last night I saw her on Inside the Actor's Studio - I never watch that show, but he had it on and there she was. About 15 minutes in he exclaims, "Holy shit, she is your personality twin".

I'm not trying to say that my looks are in her league - get past that for a second.

And yes it's true that we have a great deal in common sexually. We both grew up in unstructured households and had regular sexual partners at a young age. The connections that most people have about sex (e.g., sex and love should go together, sex is a major event in a relationship, sex should be with one person) and the divisions (e.g., gay vs. straight sex, indulgence vs. restraint, what "should" happen vs. what you want to happen) that people create in their minds don't exist because those are adult constructs. I never had that period in my life where I was talking about "what if" I had sex - I was having sex within a year or two of understanding what it was and to be truthful, it was years after I started having sex before I had any real desire for it.

...ok I digress...

What struck me last night was the little quote above. We have both been through our narcissistic immaturities and have come out the other side, almost accidentally, discovering that there is a world that exists outside of our panties. I used to think that there were only two choices: ho or homemaker. I've tried both. But there is this large margin in the middle. It's a place that American society tries to pretend doesn't exist.

Now that I have found my freedom and found what I want to do with my life (at least for the next year - no commitments beyond that...), I cannot imagine going back to the limitedness of American suburban life. No I have no real plan, but life is not a chess match. You can't solve all your problems by trying to think 8 moves ahead (this is because in chess you are up against a single clear adversary - in life you are up against much more than that, but you also have people helping you too).

Right now I know where my heart is leading me...I just hope I get the chance and have the courage to follow.

Is it bad for your career to be an essential part of your identity?

What do I do if taking a promotion may cost me some things that are really important to me?

I don't need the money (not because I'm rich but because it wouldn't really be that much money).

I would be doing it for control...
...control of something that I believe in deeply.

I would be doing it to keep my lifestyle...
...a lifestyle that I am totally addicted to now; I haven't figured out what I will do when this contract is over.

I would be doing it because it is who I am...
...and what I have been striving for; it's the whole point of getting involved in higher education as a field.

But I would have to move to Sarajevo. That is not the hardship for me. I already have an apartment and friends (and obviously a job).

The hardship is moving away from my family and the life I already have.

...but it's just for a year.

And I have to do this. If after everything, I get the ball, I cannot just hand it back. I mean *I* cannot do it, because for me, what I do as a job, the activity that I chose to be the product of my life's energy, is part of what I am.

But I realize that over time, Delaware will forget me. Delaware will move on.

But it's just a year...can things hold together for a year?

Maybe I won't be coming home in a year and a year will become 2, then 5, then 20...but I can make those decisions separately...for right now it's a year.

But I see the road that I am on and it's not leading me home...

For 12 years, the love of my life has been saying that he knows that one day I will pack up and leave all promises and smiles, never to return to him; he is just waiting to find out when.

When I called him excited with the news, there was silence... and then he said:

"Well, here it is. This is it."

And there has been a lump in my throat that I cannot swallow ever since.

Because he is right.

If I'm brave enough to write it, why are people too scared to comment?

Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.
-Henry David Thoreau


Sometimes out here I can really lose myself. In the storm of the "here and now" I find myself living moment to moment... and making choices as if I only live moment to moment, like my choice in this moment will not affect the next.

I hope I have left enough bread crumbs behind so that I can find my way home.

Sometimes I think about my goals and plans and swell up inside with excitement... and then I remember home and everything fades and starts to fall around me like a field of fireflies dying mid-flight, one by one.

Sometimes I think of home and the warmth and love radiate around me...and then I think of my plans and goals and fear freezes my heart. I'm going to have to go "out there" away from what is safe and known.

So I have been out here in Bosnia for the better part of a month. In my imagination I was going to blog everyday with updates. Right, so that didn't happen.

I read other blogs just to know that life is still going on at there: a 16 year-old in Japan worried about school, a 20 year-old Swedish hiker whose blogs I can barely guess the meanings of, a couple from Connecticut excited that they are pregnant with their first baby.

And I didn't comment any of them...

Why?

When I read other blogs I feel like a voyeur. I assume they didn't mean to have me for an audience and so I leave no footprints behind (unless I get curious about them and end up putting another tick in the number of profile views).

Even though I thought it was the coolest thing when Bart commented my first post, I find myself to distant from most bloggers - either because of age, religion, age, interests, age, place in life, etc. Does a 25 year old in Thailand really want to hear from me?

Actually probably yes.

I see that most blogs do not have much more than a handful of comments. 213 people have viewed my profile (ok, probably 13 and one dude 200 times; please stop, I know who you are!), but only 4 people have ever made a comment.

So if you are out there, and you read this, just say "hi". That's great...it really doesn't need to be more than that.

Nothing to say...

Listen,

I have so much to say, that I can't say, but I am burning to say, but I won't say.

I just told my friend:
"I just wish I was not such a tragically flawed human being...
I wish I could be the person that people think I am...
or that I am capable of being"

I also wish that I could be totally free...
but my sense of loyalty and duty are very strong
They lock me up tight...and that's not entirely a bad thing