The Towel Room.

I'm a firm believer that 99.9999% of life is mental. We are met with experiences that make us question our abilities and potentially cause us to fear the possibilities of the future—relationships, careers, etc. Fear of the unknown...is how the saying goes. But how does one fear something one doesn’t know? Doesn’t make sense, but it happens.

I’m not ashamed to admit that it happens to me.

Stick me in the middle of Bangkok's JJ's Weekend Market, I'll eventually find my way out. Go off trail and get lost in the Tamana Negara jungle, I'll just retrace my tracks. But take me home, no debt, no major expenses, and with the ability to make moves in every which way...

Can I freak out now?
Yes? Okay.


FREEEEEAKING OUT!

Life got complicated…and scary…when I stopped thinking about progressing. Nine months ago, I gave myself six months to start traveling again. Six months ago, I started working. Five months ago, I picked up a second gig. Two months ago, I realized I was burnt out. One month ago, I turned 25. Two weeks ago, I sat hunched over and cried in a towel bin, as I asked myself:

What the fuck am I doing?

My very own Scrubs moment.

The transition back to everything North American, more specifically, Hollywoodian (?) was the hardest thing I had to go through. The culture, the people, the mentality, this weird attachment to material things and pseudo-connections, everything…I didn’t want to associate with it. So I chose not to think about it. I grabbed the remote, paused my brain, and picked up two jobs. For four months, I worked like a machine between 50-55 hours a week with one day off. Everything that was in focus before somehow dissipated.

Work. Work out. More work. Sleep.

Work out. Work. More work. Sleep.

I turned in my two-week notice the day of my towel room breakdown. At that point, I knew my happiness was worth more than a free gym membership. And, now I can breathe, no more treading water. Brain is back on play and those wheels are turning, and they're turning hard. It's about time I took control of life, instead of letting it manhandle me. Time to refocus.

Cheers to a bright future 

of endless possibilities.

A glass half full

5/19/11 10:28 PM: it's finally over. i fly home tomorrow and i'm more sad to leave than excited to go home. is that bad?

This is how I started a conversation. Getting on the plane back to LA meant leaving all of Asia behind—no more backpacking, no more shake ladies or noodle guys, no more street food, no more of the last seven months. My adventure was done. El fin. Finito. NO MORE…

…or so I thought.

5/19/11 10:30 PM: …try to look at this next step as really, truly, another adventure.

This is how he ended the conversation.

Home, an adventure?

Light bulb.

In the purest sense of the word, adventure elicits excitement and fun—going to Thailand, bus-sickness three times in one hour, solo explorations, etc.—enticing the inner child in even the Scroogiest, Grinchiest of folks. But how does home fit under the same category as living in Thailand, snorkeling with sharks in Malaysia, or caving in the Philippines?

MY answer: Home is the only place where a dichotomy of me comes out of the woodwork.

budget-minimalist-walk-everywhere Kristin

vs.

label-whore-drive-four-blocks Kristin

I’ll explain:

If change is inevitable, especially when traveling, then half the fun in traveling IS coming back to experience that difference. I know I’ve changed and I’m curious to see where I’ll balance myself out. The brighter side of leaving. It was at this point in the conversation that I felt the transition from homeward reluctance to homeward enthusiasm. Going home became so exciting that I couldn’t help but smile. For the first time, I was compelled to leave the nomadic-backpacker lifestyle behind to move into the back unit of my parents’ house (I can't believe I just said that).

Long story short: getting on my flight didn’t signify the beginning to the end of my adventure but rather catalyzed its relocation, a realization that did wonders for my attitude.

Random Rant: Life, an anthology of everyday adventures and misadventures.

This conversation, in all is brevity, opened a new door to tackling each day that passes, a new lease on life so to say. My adventure isn’t just in finding personal change but living. Each day we’re confronted with life—fantastic things, little things, okay things, bad things, big things, blown out of proportion things, things. Life is as good as we make it out to be; I choose to revel in the fantastic, better the okay, and take on the rest.

LIFE AS AN ADVENTURE, a glass half full approach to living.