Wanderlust

So, I received this sweet award, many moons ago and I've just been too distracted by life to respond to it (moving is hard!). And I'm not even going to do it right, but better late and wrong than not at all! (well, I hope anyway) I got this fun little Sunshine Award from my high school Spanish teacher. So appropriate because I have had some killer wanderlust of late and she is one of my original Wanderlust inspirations. She took me on my first international trip, to Spain (be still my heart!), and the rest is history. I'm going to do her wrong though, and not pass the Sunshine along. I don't know who to send it to. Or if they want it. Or or or... Excuses... I'm hoping she'll tolerate my very LATE response and very sincere: "Back at ya!" as a sufficient response to her lovely gesture. I do so enjoy her blog and her - she's always just back from somewhere I wish I'd been and she's so good at recounting it all to let me live her adventures vicariously. You should check her out at Provence in Ann Arbor. You should also probably make her Pomegranate Guacamole right away. I'm a fan.

My award came with an assignment. I have to answer some random questions. We all know I'm always game for random rambling. Here goes!

Favorite Color:  Green
Favorite Animal: Giraffe
  Favorite Number: 3? 7? 21? I didn't know I was supposed to have a favorite number... I sort of like made up numbers that assist me in exaggeration though. Like: "There were eleventy bazillion people there." Eleventy Bazillion is my favorite number. Glad we've settled that.
Favorite Drink: It's seasonal and mood based. Here are some favorites... Hazelnut coffee. Cranberry juice and carbonated water. Rum & Coke. Cider. Iced vanilla coffee. Chocolate almond milk.  Orange juice - with normal pulp (why are there suddenly so many pulp options? Just give me some normal oj!)
Facebook or Twitter:  Facebook, clearly I can't fit my crazy into Twitter sized sound bites.
Your Passion: Brighter futures for children, ending the use of the phrase "a whole nother", and teaching people to "use their words" (aka mediation - I'll get back to you someday you handy, amazing methodology...)
Giving or Getting Presents: Giving! I know I can't say getting because I'd be a jerk, but I do prefer giving -really, really! So fun to find just the thing or find quirky ways to add meaning to something simple. I prefer getting cards though. I'll confess to that. (although I do like to send them too!). Write me a handwritten note and I'll get totally warm & fuzzy. Let it arrive in my actual mailbox and I'll probably be your best friend forever.

Now that we've sunshined, can we talk about my life for just a minute? I'm surrounded by stories of travel. Coworkers on vacation. Friends on mission trips and international work trips. Family, friends, church, work worlds. It seems everyone is headed off somewhere. Some of them are thrilled. Some of them are apathetic. Some don't want to go at all (I have no grid for this...). 

I am not apathetic with regard to the journeys of what seems to be nearly everyone around me. I'm not apathetic at all - that would be far more mature behavior. 

 I'm jealous. 

 I feel like I've been grounded. Like, literally forced to stay right here on the ground and out of my beloved airplanes. Forced to stay put and listen to other people tell me stories about their trips to islands and beaches and foreign lands and returns to familiar, cozy places. I'm just drowning in their plans and their pictures and their memories and their souvenirs. I'm smiling. I'm nodding. I'm polite.

In the dark, honest places inside of my head, I'm fiercely JEALOUS. 

Don't get me wrong. I need to hear about their trips. I want to. It's like a mini-fix that gets me through. Living vicariously until I make it to my next real fix. (oh and you're in my life and I like you and I want to know about yours!)

Inside of my head though, I'm becoming less gracious with my vicarious mini-fixes. I'm becoming whiny. Like a real drug addict, the little fix quickly becomes not enough...
I wanna go! (Stomp foot. Pout in corner.)

I want to be in a place in life where I have the time and money to pick up and go. I want my favorite people to come with me. 

Screw responsibility. 

I'm so over it. Eww. Been there, done that. I want to be the wandering free spirit who doesn't pay her student loans one month and uses up all her vacation hours and darts off to watch the sun rise in Guell Park (It is on the very short list of things I'll get up early for!).

Ok, reality check. I KNOW that I just got to go to Michigan AND Washington at the beginning of the summer for 2 of my nearest and dearest's weddings. I wouldn't trade those trips for the world. I'm aware that I'm very lucky and it hasn't been that long. It's just that travel makes me a better person and the summer has felt so long and tedious.

If I could just go I promise I'd come back far more kind and wise and willing to...almost anything. God designed travel as my personal mood stabilizer and I just don't think I've found the place in life where I get to properly apply it yet. If I don't get to run away soon, I just might have to resort to real mood stabilizers.

Ok, but all this reminds me, I better order a new passport. I lost mine in Washington. Perhaps that can be my first step towards the next big thing... My next mini-fix. I might be just a little afraid that I will run away if I have one again. I'm never that girl who irresponsibly chases a whim. This is the summer I feel like I could become that girl though...

I probably won't. I'll plan responsibly. I'll save. Find a bargain. Put it on my work calendar weeks in advance with permission. Oh but please, let it be Spain! In the next year! I can't let 10 years go by without getting back. 

Ok, bedtime! 

May our dreams be Barcelona filled.