Bye, bye Vagabonding Days

It’s only fitting that my field jeans, summer field pants, work boots, and socks are all falling part. Word is out that this is my last season as a full-time field hand. I have my trunk packed, I’m stocked and stoked from CO microbrews, my house keys arrived in the mail, and I will soon give up keys to my storage locker.

It’s time for a more ordinary, mundane, predictable existence. Classes, fixed schedules, part-time job, and life as a student in the Midwest. It’s all vaguely familiar.

I’ve manufactured quite the send off to my wandering days, with a last-minute backpacking trip squeezed in on my final break, and a 3,000-mile roadtrip in my sights. Since I start my journey on Friday, the 13th, I thought it appropriate to christen my drive with an audiobook of Stephen King’s Misery. I hope to tune in while driving through my favorite state of Kansas … quickly, efficiently, and preferably, with no memory of the experience whatsoever.

Inevitably as I wind down, I find myself a little wound up, reflective and nostalgic. The question that’s been plaguing me of late is this: Have I sufficiently engaged in my life in the last 2+ years?

I know I’ve been lucky to have had this time. A time of unfettered travel, a time where I start a new life with a new job at a new place meeting new people for a few months at a time, a couple of times a year. With each field season, I’ve packed up my life and car and relocated, resettled and started anew. I’ve learned that for some people, I am willing to drive thousands of miles for a project even if all the elements are not yet in place and the details are sketchy and I have no where to live.

I have learned that I have lost not an ounce of my intensity when it comes to my work. I’ve seen myself grow professionally, making new connections and strengthening others, while coming a little closer to deciding what I want to be when I decide to grow up

I did take care of myself this summer. Yeah … I took good care of myself this summer. I pushed hard, and worked off a fair amount of angst, anxiety and stress. I lost weight. I gave up sleep. I indulged in ice cream, chocolate and giant cinnamon rolls. I made time for me.

I finally gave myself a rightful place in my own life.