"We must be careful about what we pretend to be."
Ah, Vonnegut. You’re right. But what am I pretending to be? I don’t even know what I am, let alone have the imagination to pretend to be something else. I guess I’m pretending to be a student, and a girlfriend, and someone who’s passionate about things. I don’t think that’s real right now.
So I don’t know what I am, but I do know what I want. I want to get on a plane and go somewhere. I want to be stricken with utter awe and excitement. I want to leave my shoes somewhere and forget to ever put them back on. I want to get lost in the woods for a week, and take pictures of monsters and poetry inspiring nature. If you can dream it, you can do it, I guess.
Today I was locked out of the ski club office, and to kill time I walked past the CU peace corps office where I grabbed a pamphlet made to recruit lost souls and ambitious grads. I sat down with it and looked through, studied the maps of place one can go in the quest to better our world. Disregarding my personal belief that everyone in Peace Corps goes crazy almost immediately after signing up, it looked almost feasible. It’s tucked in the back of my mind.
What I really want to do? I want to go to New Zealand, snowboard in the southern hemisphere before laying in the lush green and muddy fields of Fiji. 6 months there before heading to the country my sister has become so fond of, photographing madness and leaping from train to train. I want to see Africa, and watercolor with strangers in alleys of Spain. I want to come back here and give my family kisses before South America, where I’ll disappear in the jungle for 2-3 years. I’ll bring Darcy if she promises not to get parasites. I want take pictures of everything, and read books written in different languages. I want to sit in cafes and drink locally brewed mysteries with curious people. Pretty much, I don’t want to be here, and that’s terrible. I have the most amazing friends in the world, but they’ll always be here. Sinking back into a lifeless reality just isn’t cutting it, I need to get out of here.
