westward we go free.

my currently running to do list- moments after i spilled an entire cup of coffee on it. what a trooper.

 

 

This morning I've spent a really long time on Google Maps. I guess I was trying to get myself spacially acclimated to the place I'm moving. Only a little over a month until the big departure. Time has spluttered and sped up and spluttered and raced forward now, the last month of my life is all a blur behind me, speed lines on a comic book drawing. So far all I've really known is that I'll be a three day drive from where I now sit. Not quite close enough for my dad to hop in the car and drive me to an emergency dentist appointment the way he did when I was at college, a mere three hours away.

 

 

 

I figured out I'll be a 19 hour car ride away from my friend Ellen in Monterrey, CA. I could drive to Seattle in seven hours, or Portland. I've never really been to Seattle, save the airport. Maybe I'll have to go.

 

 

 

But then again, I'm only seven hours away from lots of places here in Indy that I've never made it to see.

 

 

 

Today I learned that I'll be about 100 miles from the nearest large body of water, Flathead Lake. She looks to be a beauty and I hope I'll get to see her this summer in all her glory. I have a weakness for lakes.

 

 

 

I'll be less than half an hour from Idaho, but then, I already knew that because my friend Courtney took me to a hotspring in Idaho last time I visited, in March.

 

 

 

I just flipped back to the map and realized I'll only be seven hours from Calgary, so I did some Wiki research on Calgary, and honestly, it seems really badass. I"ll have to try and go. In the summer. When the roads are open. I've only been to three or four Canadian cities, Montreal, Vancouver, Sault Ste. Marie, I'd love to see more.

 

 

 

God. It's going to be wild. I just can't get over it. Just. A wild, wild place.

 

 

 

And then today I was scanning craigslist for part time jobs in Missoula because even with my student loan money I'm going to be poor as hell, and I saw a post for a job in Costa Rica and my heart got caught somewhere between my guts and my throat and I just realized... I'll never be that carefree again.. I'm going to be in so much student loan debt for the first time in my life and I'll never be able to entertain the idea of just picking up and moving to Costa Rica again... not that I ever have anyway. And something about that freaked me out. I probably never would have actually up and moved to Costa Rica to live in the trees and do god knows what, but I lived in the comfort that it was possible, that I could, if I should so choose. Now I'm relinquishing that fantasy and I couldn't let go of it as easily as I had thought I would.  

 

 

 

And all I could think was: What if I'm making a terrible mistake? 

 

 

 

What if going back to school is just something I'm going to pour years and money into and it doesn't get me anywhere? Am I gambler?  Do I have faith? What in the fuck am I doing?

 

 

 

Then I made myself step back from that ledge, the one where I fling the remains of my carefree nature and wild youth down to the treachurous crags and boulders below and hysterically mourn them, and I got on Google maps and I plotted some new adventires. Places that have never been accessible to me before, but will be now. Easier to get to, new to explore.

 

 

 

I suppose I need to let go of the places I won't be adventuring, for now. I'm looking at you Costa Rica! Instead I need to let myself be proud for the bravery of the grand adventure I am settling off on, it's certainly nothing to scoff at.