Crossroads

As some of you know, I'm about to embark on a journey across the country and back for 30 days. At first, the idea started out as to cross something off bucket list while I had the time. This morning, the day I leave, the last day I'll be sleeping in my bed for quite some time, I can't even sleep. All I can do is think. And what I am thinking about is how this road trip has developed to not only a physical journey, but a journey of the soul. For a long time I've been unhappy. Trying to fit in a cookie cutter box shaped in the form of the American dream, that I'm starting to learn, I just don't fit into. Work a job I hate, to make the most money I can, to support myself and have a house and prepare for a future that I in all truth and honesty really don't yet have and is possible I might never attain. And as I was laying in my bed, I couldn't help but think about how absurd that sounds and gasp at the amount of time I've spent doing it. Regrets...that's one thing I always wanted to live without...but if we are being honest here, if I knew what I did today 10-15 years ago, I would have made different choices along the way. Anyone that has grown as a person over years would say the same thing. The only reason not to regret is that it made you into the person you are today...which is the argument I always gave. But I never realized until now that it's just a cheap way to remove responsibility and acknowledgement of your actions from your past self and all future screw ups. Make it, own it, learn from it, tell others. Here's the flip side...if you were already that person and knew all you knew now, back then...then you would want to go back and make better decisions. Unfortunately we don't have either option and we can only learn from our successes and failures. (Or we could start listening to the wisdom of some wise old folk.) Granted, I've had some really good experiences in this life. Met some amazing people along my way, and have done things that I never knew I could or would (good and bad) in these 30 years and I wouldn't change it because that was my life experience. But even still, I'm not truly happy trying to fit myself into this box it seems. Through all the things that have happened in my life, even just recently, losing the job I hated, not being able to find a decent guy, and having my best furry friend pass out of the blue, it seems like life's been throwing me in a direction whether I like it or not. My one last tie is my house...and I'm almost thinking I should offer it up willingly as a peace offering to said "Life" before it takes that too. Lol It's as if life's sending all these signals and messages to get me to where I should be headed but all I wanna do is swim against the current because that's where everyone else is headed. I'm starting to think that maybe I've just been in the wrong stream so to speak. All I know is it's almost as if life has been speaking to me and trying to subtly point me in a direction and now it's pulling out the big guns and sending the message loud and clear. It's funny to me that I should have just paused and asked myself where life was directing me, and just gone with the flow of it all this time. (Oh the battles of being a fighting Irish and hard headed German woman!) When you ask the people that have found what they are made to do, or they are with the person that they want to be with...the phrase that just keeps rolling over and over in my mind is "Do what you love and what makes you happy. Follow your heart." Never have I ever heard any of these people say, buy a house, get a paycheck, make a logical decision on the right guy to marry. No...it's always to go with your gut...take a chance even if the world is standing against you (as it's not the norm)...no matter how crazy it sounds, just get out there and live your dream. I know these are not mind blowing words...but today they ring true to me. I've only started listening to my gut this past year...and it was usually to alert me of bad stuff and I have to say it's always been right. But with this trip I think I'm starting to learn how to listen to my gut to push me towards the good stuff too. Some days I feel like if I don't get out of this rat race and reclaim the things that make me who I am, that I'm gonna just collapse and vanish into thin air. So today with this road trip I'm hoping to slow it down and get out of the traffic, be removed from all I know and have grown to love, and be placing myself on the open road of a world with many possibilities, possibly some road blocks dangers along the way, and exchange what I have and know for something fresh and unknown...sometimes you have to cross a few borders to gain a new perspective. There are going to be many crossroads on this trip and in this journey of life...but I'm determined to make it a good one from this point forward.