Bouncing from Boston Bliss

I mentioned in a previous blog, that I'm now doing work writing for multiple organizations. Pink Pangea ( http://pinkpangea.com/author/kaytia_king/ ) is a website for female travelers who has published a few of my blogs and will continue to for another month until my contract ends with them. I've also recently been asked to start a blog for an organization I worked with in Uganda. I'm also writing for a travel agency. It goes without saying that I'm doing a lot of writing and that said it really should be better. I owe it to you as a reader, a faithful loyal reader. The past few months without a computer I couldn't track my blog views, but checking back on it now I see they never dwindled and it's humbling to know people are reading my words. What sparked me on this tangent was that I just read an article that is so devastatingly beautiful it not only brought me to tears, but also served as a reality check that the writing I've been putting out has been short of what you deserve. You deserve better and although I probably can't give you the quality of the article I'm about to post, which made me cry, I can do better...

http://www.buzzfeed.com/stevekandell/the-worst-day-of-my-life-is-now-new-yorks-hottest-tourist-at

I've been home from South America for a month now and last week was my original date to arrival in the US from Chile. Having to return from my trip a month early due to earthquakes I thought the travel bug would sting earlier.  However, the itch to travel has been creeping up for probably about two weeks now, which is unusually only because I am far from bored here in Boston. I came into an extremely fortunate situation and am living in a friend's apartment in the North End, which is an adorable Italian neighborhood in Boston. I spend the mornings sleeping in, only to enjoy an hour of yoga overlooking the skyline and the harbor from the roof deck for the afternoon.

 I would hate me. More than that it makes me feel like a right asshole every time people ask me what I'm up to or doing with my life now. At the same time, I'm happy and things are going well, really well, and I don't want to have to feel bad about it. The truth is I'm terrified this is all going to turn around any minute, because I've been so lucky in all this that it takes nearly all my energy not to think that some horrible fate is just around the corner. When I tell people of this fear they attempt to assure me that I've been through enough and that I deserve the good or that everything is going to be fine. A part of me tries to tell myself that it's not that things are so good, it's that my perspective has changed. I still don't have a  "real" job, a home, or a substantial bank account, so when strangers or old friends come out of the wood work and ask me how I do it, or tell me they're envious they don't see the whole picture, they see what I post on Facebook. The fact that I'm not a weirdo means that I don't post about how I could count the number of times a year I see my own family on one hand nor do I advertise that I missed five funerals and three weddings in the first year I was away. That's not perfect, it's perspective...it's life. 

    I've been able to come at Boston like a traveler much more than years past. I never came into town when I actually lived twenty minutes away. Now I explore every dark alley I can. I order the specials, put my feet in the water I know is freezing, wonder through the old church with open doors and blooming flowers outside. Despite going to new places frequently, I often find myself being timid. These days I want to feed my curiosity whenever I can. Living in Boston is the biggest safety net I've had in years. People speak English, one version of it at least. My cellphone works and so does Google maps. I can't fuck up nearly as much as I already have in another place a world away, so I feel much more inclined to take risks and it's paying off.

  Though I'm merely at my quarter life crisis if I could give any advice to my fellow lost souls it would be this: We're not actually lost. No one knows where they're going, some people just walk more confidently. Say yes. Explore new things and do it with a bit of recklessness, you probably need it more than you think. Lastly, birds don't learn to fly because they stay in the nest all their lives. They learn because they jump. (Or mom pushes them, but you get the point.)

   That said I've had a spectacular time this past month living in the city I've called home, but it's time to leave the nest again. I'm off to South Dakota for a few weeks to go train mustangs on a two hundred eighty acre ranch. I'll be back, but opportunity knocked and somebody's got to answer that.