As fast as you can

We run day to day and seem to miss all of the things that make the whole thing worth it. We run so hard toward our goals that we lose sight of the trip itself. I was so focused on how crappy it was to take a seven hour trip to northern Cali', but I got to see some of the most beautiful scenery in California. Other than the cows. They were not very pretty at all. I got to meet new people, see new things, drink new things, etc. My heart is definitely at home, wherever that is, but I think I could spend a lot of time just traveling to nowhere in particular. Then again, if you aren't going anywhere in particular is it still traveling?

I did learn that you should not play drinking games with people that have not drank as much as you have. Bad idea indeed.

It takes so little time to actually smell the roses

I have been living here for a year and a half, and I seem to resist actually making it my home. I don't decorate my space. I live in it with as little impact as possible. Am I just waiting to move again? Am I scared of making it something "permanent"? I tell myself and others that I don't have the money, or the time, but I do. I could put up pictures, paint it, do something with it. I mean I have a couple of stuffed animals (always watching, always judging), a broken clock and a ton of books, but nothing that screams me.

The more I think about it, it's not just here. I don't seem to try to make a physical impression anywhere. I know that I could move from here, and this house would have nothing that would be left behind that would show I had ever lived here. Or work. Or anywhere.

I suppose the impression that I make on those around me is more important. I'd like to think that if I left this place, or even moved somewhere else I would leave an impression with them. For some reason I have been thinking of friends and family that are not here, that left too early. As if there is ever a right time to go. We spend so much time running around doing things that in the end don't mean anything, when from an early age we learn about those things that make us the happiest. Family and friends. People. Chocolate.

Well, I think that is as depressing as I want to get right now...

You don't even have to feed them

I'm trying to figure out exactly why it's so "weird" that I have two stuffed animals (a pig and a bear) on my computer monitor. Is it because other people are just not comfortable with their own love of stuffed animals? I mean it's not like there are a ton of them. Two! And they aren't on my bed. Because that would be weird. A ton of stuffed animals on my bed, that I have to move everytime I go to sleep. That would be weird. It's not like I talk to them. Or sing to them. Or dance with them. Unless I'm drunk. In which case, any inanimate object is fair game.

They just remind me of living at home. Of my brothers and sister. Of a time when I never worried about any of the things that I worry about now. When vacation was a few months long. When a day consisted of nothing more important that where we left the baseball the day before. When playing hide & go seek/freeze tag was a totally worthwhile expenditure of my time. I guess I worry a lot about forgetting about those things.

And the pig, of course, is wearing my Darth Vader "Who's Your Daddy" pin.