a river must run its course

I feel like I always have the urge to run away from wherever I am, never quite satisfied.  It's the vagabond quality that I feel is ingrained in my soul.  Maybe there's more to it than that, but I haven't discovered it yet.  Maybe my vagabond soul is evidence of being called to something that I haven't discovered yet.  I'm forever reaching and never quite satisfied.  I keep thinking about all these wonderful things I could pursue, things more wonderful than standing for eight hours in a day greeting people and helping them with their purchases.  Of all the jobs I could do, retail isn't that bad.  In fact, I mostly like it.  However I can't help but think that I was made for something more than this, that I haven't found it yet, that I haven't arrived... that perhaps it's an ok in-between place to be, perhaps a temporary calling? but I haven't reached what I am really meant to be doing, what I was made to be doing.  I have toyed with getting another degree, but in business, so that I can someday open my own tea shop, sell art, and grow community.  However, a degree in business doesn't draw me much right now.  I have also considered a degree in education, or at least a teaching credential, but that also seems dry, like a bunch of hoops to jump through to do something I enjoy that may be tainted by the politics of a school environment.  ...Or I could go back to school for an MFA in... what?  painting?  drawing?  ceramics?  realistic or abstract?  I'm not sure that's the perfect path either.  If only I could be paid to create whatever I wanted to create... or if I could just make art and not worry about having to pay off school or having to have a roof over my head or clothes or food.  I'm not so much worried about the every day necessities, but knowing I have loan payments coming due soon is scary.  Out of all the paths ahead of me on this dimly lit road of feeling the necessity of further education, I feel like I am stumbling most in the direction of a degree in art therapy.  It seems like it would be a nice mix of creativity and intellectual pursuit... of making art, writing papers, and helping people.  To do that, I need to move.  Any preferences for a new state for me to exist in?  Texas, in all its glory, does not have any art therapy masters programs.  California costs too much.  I'm leaning towards Emporia State University in Kansas... but I want to take more time to think before I apply.  I could also do a ceramics residency.  I could also do so many things.  When it seems like few opportunities lay ahead, it merely means that I haven't really looked.

22.

A cousin of mine posted a status on facebook that confused me: "I feel like 22".  It was confusing because I am 22, but she is younger than me, so why would she feel like 22?  Apparently she was quoting Taylor Swift song lyrics.  I didn't remember that Taylor Swift was my age.  22 is a weird age.  At 18 you can buy spray paint -- and other things, but I got the ID for the art projects.  At 21 you can have a drink.  22... seems old if you're a teenager, but now that I'm that age, leaning closer and closer to 23, I realize that 22 is still just young, and I frequently feel young, naive, still a child.  I don't know what I could do that would make me "feel my age" but I have a feeling that most choices people make that may do that for them are decisions filled with regret.  22 for me is a year of being partially in the real world and realizing that I don't like it.  There are good moments, but I always secretly long for that place of contentment and bliss that I often equate with living in a cabin in the woods -- maybe with a potter's wheel, some clay, and a kiln.  School burnt me out, and retail is tough.  I don't know what I'm supposed to do that will really be the right choice for me.  I feel forever at a crossroads.

My World

It's hard letting people in; I'm not sure what I'm so scared of, except perhaps that the closer I let someone be, the farther they may wish to go.  I think a lot of it has to do with growing up overseas and moving a lot.  Even though I have only lived in two countries - (hah, *only 2*) - I have lived in a lot of houses, and I grew up in a transient community.  We were not nomads in the general sense, no.  I grew up attending a school for the children of missionaries.  Missionaries, even if stationed in one place for a long time typically return to their country of origin every few years to touch bases with their supporters and raise more support to continue in their ministry.  Thus, each year, several kids would leave, replaced by several new or returning faces.  My "class" was not constant, though anyone who was ever a part of it could be considered "one of us."  Some people I grew up with.  I could tell you that I knew one guy since I was five -- but when I was 8, I wasn't there. and when he was 14, he wasn't.  Our years in other places shaped us just as much as our years in that place did, and we often came back with changed perspectives.  I remember coming back my freshman year of high school and feeling like everything there had changed and everyone had gotten closer, but I had also changed, differently, and I felt like I had drifted farther away.  The people I grew up with, no matter how haphazardly, are the people who I think I will always consider almost as a family; they are friends that I may contact out of the blue, and I think I know that they will be there for me.  They understand more than anyone I have met since what I have been through and what I am going through, they have seen and felt similar things.  I think it's hard for me to trust people who don't fully get where I am coming from, and so I try and tell them where I am coming from, but they never saw it or felt it like I did.  One of these days I will have to let it go and figure out a way to trust people and let them in though they may never fully know or understand me or my life.

I was thinking last night about my connection with the word "vagabond."  I know I am not in the literal sense a vagabond, but I connected with the word the same way that I connected with the word "sojourner" and came up with the screen name "sojourniste" when I was in high school.  I feel like a wanderer.  Not because I am homeless in the literal sense, but because I don't feel like I have roots anywhere.  I stay anywhere too long and I am anxious to find something new, to move on.  I follow the wind where it blows me.  I don't have one place that is home.  I desperately want one place that is home.  I desperately want roots, but I am so scared to plant them.  I wrote last night what I feel would be an excellent line for a song, though I haven't written the rest of it yet:

"and someday
when my vagabond soul
tires of wandering
I'll find my place with you"

I wasn't sure whether it would be a song to a lover or a song to God, but I think I sometimes feel lost on both fronts and feel like I am wandering and searching for a place I can claim rootedness on both fronts.

Maybe I Need a Man

I really do hate to gripe, especially about this, I feel like it makes me seem weak, desperate, and needy as a woman.  I don't want to be any of the above, or be perceived as any of the above.  I'm 22.  I think it's pretty normal to want to be in a relationship at this point, but I'm not.  I never have been.  I have had a few good guy friends over the years, but the ones I may have liked didn't seem interested.  The one - maybe two - who actually showed interest were not really my cup of tea.  I try not to give up hope, but my external optimism is merely a mask and coping mechanism for the pessimist that reigns.  I'm at a point in my life where I don't know many men, and I don't really know how to interact with them either.  I'm at a loss.  I really want to buy into prince charming riding in on a white horse and sweeping me off my feet.  I really want to buy into a fairy tale romance, but if history is any indication, I'm not really the girl that most guys imagine sweeping off her feet.  I try to stand on my own, to find strength in being a single woman and figure out what that means in my life, and I am mostly satisfied.  I try to be satisfied in my singleness because that's where I am at right now, and I can't imagine anything changing anytime soon.  I have friends who had their first kisses in middle school and others who are now married with a kid or two, all my age.  I've hardly even been on any dates - and the few include school sponsored events.  Since I was little I knew I wanted to get married someday and have a family of my own.  The older I get, the more I want this.  I want a husband and children who I can love and care for.  I want to be a wife and a mother.  I don't know how that works.  I'm not sure at this point if a guy asked me out if I would say "yes" out of joy/possible desperation or "no" because it's such a foreign concept to me.  I think though I so want someone in my life, that since such is so against the norm for me, I would have no idea how to be a girlfriend, and I would be really scared.  I need someone who is willing to give me a chance and be patient with lack of knowledge about any of this... but I guess in time, all in good time.