This winter I spent more time in my home state Kansas than I have in years, warmly recieved by a frigid land, fell back into the ever-open arms of my old college town Lawrence and spent enough time with the family to be able to determine with a tape measure our differences. I provoked in many curiousity and in those closet to me, prudent reproof. For the most part, my family would like to see me fall in love, get hitched, find a real job and settle down.
I heard these terms so much over the last month and a half. What does it mean a ´real job´, ´real life´, ´settling down´, if settling down implies paving the way for a cyclic mundanity of repetition that inspires in me a dizzying restlessness? What if I don´t feel ´settled´ settling down? Is life composed soley of soul-sacrafising obliteration of individualism, of falling into line? Of unions that divide instead of bind? Is it an contradiction that I seek a relationship that sets me free, that protects and respects my individuality, and only in that can the union be achieved? I seek solitude and solidarity. Is it promiscuous that I fall in love more than once a year? Does having a ´real job´imply that I must be at odds with it, that I devote to it more than to I? Isn´t life more than that? Over the years of living abroad always when I come home I hear about travelling ¨do it while you´re young because once you get a real job it´s too late¨. Blasphemy. For those who´ve (in all good spirits) laughed my travels off stating that I had the ´travel bug´, allow me to turn the tables and pose the question: Could it be that I just didn´t catch the 8-5 got-a-real-life-that-brings-me-down-and-a-mortgage-to-pay bug? Many have said hopingly that I would get it out of my system, but it seems the more I get it in, the more I need it. I thrive on this challenge, on the challenge of language and on people who pose healthy challenges in my life. My challenge seeking, obstacle driven lifestyle is my life, not a bug.
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