I know I’ve been saying this since I turned twenty, but this time I’m for real you guys.  This has to be a quarter life crisis (or mid?!).  I’m desperately gripping on to any opportunity that offers a chance at doing anything other than what I’m doing at that moment.  Simple or life changing, I want it.  Challenges?  Gimme.  Learning opportunities?  Let me at ‘em.

Maybe this is because I’ve been traveling so much lately, more than I ever have.  This isn’t the travel I used to do, where I could jump in the car with a full tank of gas and drive as far as it would take me.  Now I’m traveling by train, plane and automobiles that I’m not controlling.  Every time I change a direction I lose sense of home.

Home is where my heart is (and yes, where my cat is), but when I leave my heart in a cute historic New England town or drop it over a perfectly quilted space in the Midwest how can I ever feel settled.

One thing I am sure of is that I never knew love until I moved to New York.  Love gained, love lost, love found, love made, love love love.  Michigan Tonya had so much to learn from New York Tonya.  Grabbing on to the “moving to NYC” opportunity and never letting go no matter how hard I was whipped around was the best decision of my life and only led to the challenges and learning opportunities that Michigan Tonya needed.

Next weekend I’m flying to Jamaica with my aunt and a co-worker.  My aunt used to live and work with charities in Jamaica (where she met my uncle) and my co-worker is part of a charity program through her college.  We’re going down to meet with some people my aunt knows and hope that they might be able to help us with organizing projects.  The project that has my heart is restoring the school in a village near where my uncle grew up.  The school is in shambles and in the past few years reduced from 100-something students to 25.  This means children are either forced to travel farther to different villages or they’re not going to school at all.  Without a proper learning facility the school could close, leading to a domino effect of destruction.

I went to Jamaica once for a day while on a cruise.  I remember Michigan Tonya thought it wouldn’t be very safe or clean, but of course when a cruise ship drops you in a different country it’s always the most Americanized area.  Thankfully, having family there we were able to travel into the country and I was in complete daydream the entire time.  It was like being inside a Disney movie, only asleep and dreaming in a hammock.  A hammock induced dream at Disneyland.  I don’t know, it was just so perfect nothing seemed real.  Everyone was so kind and accommodating.  The air was clean, the water was blue , the sky was clear, the flowers were exotic, the birds were beautiful.  The bugs looked like they might land next to you, tell you you were looking pretty, wink and fly away.  The only honking was if we were turning on a sharp road in a blind spot.  No one was hustling down the street yelling at someone on their iPhone.  

I’m so excited to get down there, see the kids and do whatever I can to help out.  Mostly, I have my sights set on teaching arts and crafts, but if I have to hammer a few boards I’ll do it!  My aunt was joking that I might not want to come home and I was all like “haha, yea I know” TOTALLY SERIOUS.

I have that stray dog freedom feeling again.  I feel so detached from everything.  And since I was so recently introduced back to that feeling when you have a lot of hope for something and it crashes to the ground and is spit on by a boy… I really want to do something for myself.  And the only way to truly feel fulfilled is by fulfilling the needs of others.*

*Yes, I read that on the end of my tea bag string but that doesn’t make it any less meaningful to me.  I even bolded it because if you only remember one thing from this babbling blog it’s that.

If the US Marshall, CIA, Collector of Library Late Fees, my mom and Barack Obama all tell me I have to come home then I do have a back up plan.  A business plan.  Something that I don’t feel like getting into because I’m very tired and coming down from a sugar high from the Snickers I ate at the beginning of this blog.  I will tell you this, it has to do with one of my favorite old lady past times: antiquing!

Good night, all.  Go out there tomorrow in that big scary world and do something nice for someone else.  Order some kindness cards!  http://www.giftofkindness.com/cardsposter.htm or make your own that say “You suck!  Be nicer!!” and throw them at people! :o)