Leave. Don't worry. Everything will still be here when you get back. It is you who will have changed.

      That's the encouragement I took from a book by Donald Miller in high school, when worrying about my future, college, dreams, etc. The advice is wonderful and it's tugging at me again, for when I graduate. Before age ten grew up thinking my life would be graduating college, getting a job, living in Charlotte and getting married and having children. When I realized that wasn't required of me in society anymore, I decided that path for me personally was absolutely crazy. At least until I'm much much older. There is way too much I want to experience before any kind of settlement happens. I've rarely given any thought to a wedding or children since then. Not that it won't happen, maybe one day, but definitely not anytime soon. I always told people that when I grew up I'd be a photographer or artist. But there are so many other things I want to learn and make a living from. How can people just choose one thing to do?        
       I only have one life to experience, so I may never know what I want to be. I really crave experiencing every place and culture the world has to offer, finding true love in nature and living simply, and make my career in life to become selfless, help those who need it, and to find God in everything I do. This may be a bit too Eat Pray Love for some people, but to me it sounds like the most rewarding life out there. It may not be realistic, to be honest not many of my dreams have been. But I don't want to let this one that I love so much slip away.

I have a long to do list for my life. I won't list all of them but here are a few.

-Work in a vineyard
-Learn to sail
-See the northern lights
-Spend at least a month in New Zealand
-See a sunrise in the Grand Canyon
-Have a sweet six pack, but I'll settle for a flat stomach
-Learn how to be completely self-sustainable
-Own a piano
-Take a road trip across the US
-Inspire someone
-Become slightly domesticated (aka cook)
-Improve my spanish by spending a few months in South America
-High-five a monkey
-Work with marine life like dolphins, seals, etc, even if it's just feeding them dead fish.

So... If you see me in seven years living in Charlotte and I've only done two or three of these things, please poke me in the eye and remind me that I really wanted a cool life for myself. I may need a reminder, especially if I'm poor.

"It's a living book this life... Soon the credits will roll and all your friends will fold out of your funeral and drive back to their homes in cold and still and silence. They will make a fire and pour some wine and think about how you once were... and feel a kind of sickness at the idea you will never be again. My hope is that your story will be about changing, about getting something beautiful born inside you, about learning to love a woman or a man, about learning to love a child, about moving yourself around water, around mountains, around friends, about learning to love others more than we love ourselves, about learning oneness as a way of understanding God. We get on story, you and I, and one story alone."
Donald Miller.

This post is dedicated to my grandpa who passed a year ago, July 7th 2010. One of the most inspiring and spiritual people I've ever known.

It's also dedicated to my friend Ted who still manages to travel the world without the use of most of the muscles in his body due to ALS.