Saturday, February 22, 2014

happy birthday! 2/22/14

Happy birthday to me! I must confess, i definitely didn't think that i'd be spending my birthday in new zealand with gary and a few new friends recovering from a surgery, but i'm glad I am. I'm at the Tamara Lodge hostel in Wanganui and Gary will leave to go south tomorrow while i stay and recover. It's sucks that he has to leave, but i'm already looking forward to hearing about his solo experience when we meet back up again in march. I think it will be good for him. Luckily I won't be here all alone for the next couple of weeks. we've made friends with several people from the hostel including the germans Esther and Eustus (here now but shortly departing) and Venus, an American girl who's going to be working here the entire time I recover. Everyone has been incredibly kind to me as i recover. My cab driver, and the receptionist at the hospital both offered their homes to me during my recovery, but I haven't taken them up on their generosity because the Tamara is so comfortable and I've been getting so much support here as  well. People are so kind. I'm really happy to have Venus staying here with me to help me out.

It's been an interesting kind of challenge trying to do everything over the last few weeks with only my left hand, including this blog post. so sorry in advance for the inevitable increase in typos lol.

As i said, I never really expected to be here now, or in this situation. Traveling like this has always been an idea of mine, but one that I thought might never actually be realized. This trip has been unexpected and different in so many ways and it has taught me so many things. Now here i sit injured and stationary at a time where I thought id be on a grand adventure, but i just have to take it as part of the adventure itself. I'm sitting here with an itch to leave and move on, but I must remain. It gives me time to think and write. both to think of my past and future. I find that happens to me when I stop moving. I start to think more and more of what I'm doing and where I'm going. Here I am now at a standstill in the middle of my trip wondering what it's all for. What is this about? where will it take me? These aren't questions I was preoccupied with when I was moving. I was more focused on the present. On the new places and people surrounding me daily. Now that I have a solid base of operation, and a place with people I am familiar with I am finding myself asking the same questions that I was in the states. Namely, Where am I going, where do I want to go, and am I doing everything I can to get there? I feel like every time I slow down or stop these questions resurface, and i start to think of what's next. the uncertainty can be unsettling at times, but it is simultaneously liberating if you look at it right.


When I was in Utah i was so frustrated I didn't know my future. I felt like I should know what I want to do. I felt like I was slipping behind those around me, especially from Williams who were well on their career paths. I was sitting there uncertain. My whole life, I have been told I can do whatever I want, and when I came back to Williams I really lived by that. I began to study the things that truly interested me, and enjoyed myself. I started to live life on my terms and I didn't know where that was going to take me. The freedom was intoxicating. This uncertainty that I am talking about has been both a blessing and a curse to me. We can do anything we want in this life, it's just hard to see how sometimes. When we make that realization, however, we are finally presented with something that many of us yearn for. freedom. True freedom. not the cheap bullshit they sell you in beer commercials, but the freedom to be who you want to be. To do as much or as little as you desire. the freedom to choose who you are.


This comes at a cost though, and that cost is accountability. When you see that you can do anything, you also realize the choice is yours and yours alone. This was and is hard for me. With so many choices laid out in front of me, how can I be sure I'm making the right one? How can I be sure that there wasn't something else I should do? could do? It is very easy to become overwhelmed and frozen in the face of freedom. To second guess, third guess myself. To feel the pressure of getting it right. With so many opportunities, who am I to squander what so many would work so hard for? The pressure is daunting. This is where faith comes in. For me, it comes down to faith in myself. For many of my friends it is faith in God or the universe or logic, but the key is that it comes down to faith. faith that the right thing is happening and the right thing will happen for you. I require faith in my own moral code and direction to feel like I am on the right path of the many available to me. This faith is shaken from time to time and requires constant analysis and vigilance to bolster it. This provides me with strength and weakness. When I question my path and position, it becomes hard to be confident in what I am doing. But when I know I am right I know I have found that choice through solid analysis and I am steadfast in my position. A big part of this strength comes from examining as many options available to me as possible before making my choices to see what does and does not work. If you had said that I would be spending my birthday in a foreign country with mostly people I don't know recovering from surgery I would have been surprised a yer ago. But I'm sure as hell glad I am, because I needed to see this path. Now I have to decide if I'll stay on it.


Friday, February 7, 2014

Boy has it been a while. 2/7/14

So I disappeared for quite some time, and many people are apparently eager to hear how I've been! I've come across many trials and tribulations, and many joys as well. One of the saddest things to happen was I lost my old journal with about 2 weeks of entries from right when I stopped. Part of the reason for my lack of updates. I also got in an accident on trail and broke my wrist and occipital bone minorly, but they are healing well so far, hopefully last doctor appointment for that will be on Monday! I plan on posting some more details about the last month or so in a later post, but I figure that it's best to just start anew. I'm here with Gary now and the initial group of john Kaspar Manja nick and I broke up a few weeks ago. I'm hiking the tongariro northern circuit with Gary and we're dealing with the rain as well as we can :) without further excuses, here's my journaling from yesterday, hopefully with more to follow!

2/7/14

I have a broken wrist, a broken face and my knee is killing me today. I feel great. Gary is here, and today we did our first day on the track. It's great to be with someone who knows me so well after being with strangers for the last few months.

 I've spent so much time thinking about who I will be and who I want to be and it's great to have someone here who knows and who can remind me who I have been. We talked today about many things, but I think one of them stands out the most to me. I'm here because I want to be. I always wanted to be. I'm doing things that I have always wanted to do but never did, either because I thought I didn't have time or because it would be too hard or I would do it another day or some such other excuse. And at the end of the day I had a list of things and places a mile long that I wanted to do it go or lead about and I hadn't done any of it. Why?

Fear. Fear is why. I was afraid I couldn't do it, afraid it was too hard, too unstable, too risky or impractical. All these ideas were out of my comfort zone and intimidating. I'll tell you something though, I'm tired of it. I'm tired of letting fear run my life, and you should be too. Go. Go dare to be great. What do you want to do, what do you KNOW you need to do but haven't yet? Do you want to move across the Country? Quit your job? Go back to school? Tell them you're in love? What is it? What is driving you mad? I know there were many things for me, and I also know once I started doing them it scared the hell out of me. It was not easy to move alone to New Zealand for 6 months. But god damn did I need to. I'm sitting here by a riverside under waterfalls with beautiful clear water spraying out over the jagged hostile  black burnt cliffs of Mordor with friends old and new. 


I feel more free than I have in years, because I'm not letting my fear run my life for me anymore. Stop saying you 'will one day'. Go do it today. There's no time like now, and you won't regret it. In fact, it will be the best thing you've ever done. And you know it, too.