The next adventure

My sister, Alli, and I decided a few months ago to take a trip together overseas. Sadly our other sister, Colleen, won't be able to join as she has very few vacation days available (they make them use their own vacay days to take Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays!). We decided on Thailand as a nice mix of culture and history, beaches and sand, adventure and relaxation. We've been trying to plan things but my work and personal schedule keeps getting in the way...program start date changing multiple times at work, wedding season taking up free weekends and so forth. It's so hard to get the ball rolling when each week it seems there is some new news at work, the date has changed again, the time isn't right, on and on.

Every time I open my Thailand books I purchased in eager anticipation, I get overwhelmed. Despite the fact that we theoretically could be leaving for Thailand in 2 weeks, it doesn't feel real yet...and I don't think it will until we both finally purchase our plane tickets, once I finally know what the H is going on at work. It's frustrating and I just want to know I'm going already, have it mapped out, begin to book our bungalows and hotels, decide which trek we want to take on the back of a giant elephant, which monasteries to visit, which beaches to lay lazily about, which waters to dive in. It's so hard, being a planner by day, to not want to have this planned out minute by minute already. It also doesn't help that my sister and I are trying to coordinate schedules to talk on Skype since she's enjoying another vacation down in Mexico currently.

Life is tough...it's busy and messy and sometimes you just have to pull the trigger, call the shots, make it happen and let the chips fall as they may. Work doesn't rule my life. I don't get paid enough to put my personal time on hold. I should just book it and say THERE! I have spent the last 6 months working long hours, many weekends with no real vacation...it's time.

Slightly older, slightly more wise?

I am officially 26 and a few days. Some years it feels different, this year it doesn't. Well, I guess it feels a little different but not in a way I expected. I feel a change in the sense that I feel more driven...driven to grow as a person, to climb the corporate ladder, to move into the next phase of my being, to make more steps towards those bigger goals in life. Some things are becoming more clear, others more muddied.

We make these choices in life, these decisions that shape us and form our future in some ways. I look down on myself, where I am today, how I got here. It's all pretty crazy. I moved to Vermont almost 4 years ago...uprooted my entire life, left all my best friends, moved to a totally foreign place to begin the quest to "corporate stardom". I admit, I want to become something...I want my name to be recognized at least in my field of work, whatever that ends up being. I want to make a name for myself. Have I made the right choices up until this point to move towards that goal? Who knows! The way each step affects the future cannot be seen until the future is reached, then you look back and reflect on your choices, your decisions. I do not believe in coincidences...so with that in mind, I must assume that the movement you make in life is purposeful even if it doesn't seem so at the moment.

The bigger picture. I feel like I'm getting closer to seeing it, seeing what is in store, seeing what my next "big thing" is. A year of changes in my work, a year of weddings and engagements and babies, a year of love and love lost, a year of challenges, a year of family health. All these things, all in the span of one year...they are part of the building blocks of the next step, whatever it may be. Another year gone, another age reached, another lesson to be learned.

Another year

Another birthday is almost upon me...2 days away. Even though I'm getting older, I rarely freak out about my birthday. This year I feel especially relaxed about it. Usually I find myself reflecting or assessing my current situation, and maybe in a day or two I will but at the moment I almost feel numb about it. What is a birthday really, other than a way to track time? And time isn't even a trackable thing since it is constantly in motion, it is constantly changing. Each second ticks by, time is moving, fluid, dynamic.

What will this new age have in store for me? I will be going into my 26th year on this planet. That's over a quarter of a century. I've lived all over, traveled all over, studied dozens of subjects, laughed, cried, loved, lost. Every experience up to this point has shaped where I am today. It's easy to look back and say you wish you had done something differently or better but the reality is, every action has a reason...every thing we do puts us where we are today. Sometimes I have to remind myself of my own mantra...there are no coincidences. Or my mom's mantra...everything happens for a reason. All we can do is hope that each decision we make, each action we take teaches us something. If it seems like something we could have done better or differently, perhaps it just takes looking at it from a different angle, realizing it's benefit, it's place in our life, it's purpose in shaping who we are at this moment.

Twenty six. My horoscope (multiple ones actually) say I'm about to have a month of illumination...a month of the spotlight being on me and to make sure that I don't try to revert into the Libran way of wanting to be a balance point between two people, but to let the light shine on me, let the attention be put on me. I don't do well at that but I guess a birthday is a good excuse to give something new a try!

Brrrr

Last night was the first time I've closed all my windows since I moved in to my new apartment (minus a few crazy storms). The chill has arrived, despite the warmer day times, the chill is here...fall is here. Although I love sandals and sundresses (probably too much so), I do love being able to curl up on the couch and pull my alpaca blanket over me, sip some hot tea or coffee, enjoy the warmth of the oven after baking some tarts.

I love the cooking that comes with fall. Tarts and applesauce, soups and bread, squash. The smells are beginning to waft through my apartment...I love it.

The chill also adds an interesting element to my exercising. I have never been one to run in the cold...my lungs burn within mere minutes. But clearly I need to get over this if I'm going to run a half marathon on November 9th. I ran last night along the bike path to enjoy the scenery and my arms and hands were numb by the end, my legs splotchy red from the cold air. Then the wind picks up, a breeze blows across the sweat sending a deep chill down the body.

This weekend will be great. Birthday dinner party for a friend with great food, good friends and a nice porch to sip wine on. Farmers Market with the dogs (I'm doggie sitting for Emi and Kev), coffee and a chocolate croissant on Church St.. Apple picking followed by a massive cooking fest, all things apple...apple tarts, apple pie, apple sauce, salad with apples, you name it, we're going to make it! And then a hopeful attempt at finding tickets for Sunday's Fine Wine and Food Festival at Shelburne Farms. I just have to find tickets!

Enjoy it...enjoy the crisp air. It's so clean, so rejuvenating. Can't you feel it? Can't you feel the cool breeze blowing through, pushing cobwebs away, clearing out that dusty attic, inspiring you to get rid of the old and bring in the new? Fall. A time to fall...fall in leaves, fall into new clothes, fall in love.