I'll be the first to admit that I'm not the best at big decisions or big life changes. One would think that wouldn't be the case coming from a woman who regularly packs up her whole life and moves halfway across the country (and sometimes the world), but there you have it.
At the same time, though, there's a kind of freedom and exhilaration that comes from big changes. Right now, I'm at a point in my life where there is very little tying me to any one spot. Whenever I feel restless, I can just pack up and move on. I may be small, and the world may be vast, but all that means is that there are so many more possibilities for my life than I can even comprehend.
Those possibilities and my choices have led me from a small Chicago suburb to New Orleans, Kigali, London, and a whole host of other cities. I have kissed a boy in front of Buckingham Palace, danced in the rain in Paris, laid flowers on Oscar Wilde's grave the morning of my 21st birthday, seen the sunset on a beach in Rwanda, and chatted with a devil outside a pirate absinthe bar in New Orleans. And now, I'll find new adventures, in Lexington, Kentucky.
I'll be honest, I'm a bit terrified. It's always a little frightening to step off into the unknown. But I also know that this is the right step. I'm ready for new people, new food, new sights. I'm ready to start a new layer of my story.
I would say starting over, but it's really not. The quiet, sensitive girl that I was growing up in the Chicagoland area is still there, as is the bubbly, loving woman I became in New Orleans, and the nomad self I embraced while living in London. My toughened, more assertive self from Oklahoma City will always exist. But now is my chance to add on a new layer. I don't know yet what Lexington will have to teach me, but I know that I cannot wait to find out.
