“Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.”
For those of you have have known me long, you know I love adventure. I love new places, new languages, new cultures, new foods, and new experiences. I sometimes forget all of the amazing experiences I have already had in my 25 years of life and so here is a place to document my past, present, and future adventures.
After moving from Southern California to Boston Massachusetts, and now to good old South Carolina (and driving my Ford to each of those places) I have done a good deal of exploring the United States. However, I have had my share of foreign experiences as well. I have bargained in the market places of Antigua Guatemala, I have dipped my feet in the Vltava River in Prague, and picked lice out of orphan girls hair in Mexico. I have stood in awe of Niagara Falls (on the Canada side), ridden a camel to the Great pyramids and sailed on a fluca on the Nile river at Sunset. I have spent the night under the stars in a Bedouin camp in Wadi Rum Jordan, hiked to the top of Mount Sinai, and traded the earrings out of my ear to a 5 year old girl in Petra. I have explored on my own the old city of Jerusalem, witness multiple open heart surgeries in Tel Aviv, and driven Muslim children to and from the Gaza border for medical treatment.
Travel is one part, but I also have been able to experience so much in my 25 years of life. Living with no electricity and running water I experienced life as a colonist in the 1628 for the reality show Colonial House (PBS). I was able to sing 6 times in front of 11,000 people for Pawsox Idol and through votes I won allowing me to sing again on TV and the National Anthem as well. I have performed salsa dancing at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the Boston Aquarium, for goodness sake I taught Oprah Winfrey how to milk a goat!
The past 3 years living as a full time nanny in a family that I love has really opened up my mind and heart. Even though I will always have my sense of adventure I find myself longing to settle down. I want to be a wife and a mom live near family and friends. Raise my kids to be good people. Cook and laugh and entertain. Buy a house, live simply. Growing up I would have thought that you could only have one or the other. A single crazy life of adventure or a boring life of monotony and routine. But I realize now that you can have both! Having kids and raising them WILL be my next crazy adventure. I will take them with me, camping, and traveling, teach them about other cultures and show them new experiences. Watch in wonder as they experience things for the first time. This is what I want.
Ok now to the point, right now I am not a wife, I am not a mother, but I am ready for my next adventure. For a while I was feeling sorry for myself stuck in a place in life where one phase of adventure had ended and another had not yet begun. Bored, depressed, lonely, impatient, aaaaaand in the south. So my answer? Create my own adventure! A week from tomorrow I will be in my trusty Ford driving 12 hours to Ann Arbor Michigan. I will be reunited with the Song family that I love, and I will be once again working with them for the months of February and March. Ella is now 6, Emi is 4, and Vincent is 1. Along with negative temperatures and exploring Ann Arbor, they will once again be my latest adventure. My tentative plan is to come back to South Carolina at the end of March, but I am not 100% sure what the future holds for me. Right now I am hoping to figure that out the only way I know how by living my life with God, family, and adventure.
