peaceful, easy feeling

In Phoenix, I live in a far west, burgeoning suburb called Goodyear. It's just now developing, so there isn't much where I live other than empty fields, endless sky, and mountains.

As I was running in the darkness the other night, beneath more stars than I've seen since I left Ohio years ago, it struck me, in all that vastness, how far away I was from everyone and everything I know and love. How disconnected, detached...and free. It's hard not to feel a bit wild and free when there's nothing for miles besides you, a couple stray cacti, and oceans of sky. Puffing away on my run, it felt like I could be swept up in a moment and simply disappear.

Yet, more than not, I never feel that way. Even in this town, which is a temporary home, where I have few attachments and little connection to anything outside of work, it's so easy to sink into a nice, easy rhythm of daily life. I don't even have anything here to "settle for," yet that's what I've done. It was a refreshing reminder of how easy it can be to feel tied down, and how easy it is to sink into the quicksand of complacency. That I can't depend on any outside stimulus--any sudden change of events-- to make me feel alive. I can't count on going to grad school, to changing my life and location once again, to disrupt me and inspire me into becoming a new and better person...or into feeling alive. That's up to me.

Part of my absence from this blog has been my inability to get outside my head even for a moment, to put down the spreadsheet, email, and endless stream of data that confronts me at every turn (be it grad school or otherwise) and take a moment to breathe, look around, and remember how beautiful this world is and to take advantage of living in it. I am embarrassed to be writing the stereotypical "carpe diem" post (which I penned many a time in my highschool Xanga days), but I guess for what it's worth, that's what I have to remember- that regardless of what decision I make, or where I go, it's not the choice itself that will make me, but the daily decision to be part of that world that will make the difference in the long run. I guess I better get started now.