Contentedly restless . . .

Today's picture is from the Great Ocean Road in Australia. I'd love to go - I'd love to go to a lot of different places. Not just physical places either - there are places that I hope my friendships will go (not all do), places that I hope I go on my journey with God (some I don't) and places that I'd love to revisit in time, because from my current perspective, they seem better than perhaps they were.

I love my life. I love waking up every day. I love the rain that's hitting the windows right now, playing its own little song, and I love the roll of thunder that reaches into my soul and touches something deep and fierce and real and dares me to answer back. I love my family, so much. I love my friends - those who I share a particularly close bond with especially. I love the people I work with, I love the people I get to meet each day. I am content.

I'd hate to stay in Calgary the rest of my days. I'd hate to never see the Great Ocean Road, swim in every ocean, walk in a bamboo forest (again!). I'd hate to never see the Southern Cross, the afternoon sky over the Indian Ocean from the coast of Mozambique. I'd hate to never live in Scotland (I'd settle for northern England). I would hate to be stuck.

Though I love my life right now, I would hate it if this was the climax of my story. I would hate to develop a routine, a comfortable life.

I would hate to have gone through this whole thing building for a future that may never happen while never really enjoying the present.

Though I'm sure there are a number of wonderful careers I could take the time to train for and then dedicate most of the rest of my waking life to, I'd rather try for one that allows the freedom my heart so desperately craves.

Though I love my family and friends very much, I fear I may never ever settle down for very long in any one area . . . it's just that there is such a big world out there, and every horizon I see I feel like chasing.

One, however, I cannot ever chase, and it is this horizon that feeds this seemingly irrational sense of urgency I have towards travel and living a full life. I can't go back. I can go forwards and off to the side, but not back. That which I was yesterday I never will be again. I'll never return to an age of relative innocence, nor can I unlearn or un- remember certain things.

I don't want to waste a single second.

But I'm happy enjoying the time that I have where I am.