Just relax—nothing to get excited about.

Is what the man at the table behind mine just said, laughing. I need to keep that in mind—as the pace of work and travel picks up, the stress just builds and builds, and I find myself forgetting to breathe.

I want to post some stories from Africa, and thoughts on the myriad ways my friends are handling turning thirty, and how much I’m starting to enjoy snuggling my baby niece. Soon. Right now there’s a plane to catch and miles and miles of driving to do.

Round and round and round we go

Here I am in San Diego, home for the holidays for a week between pleasure travel and work travel. I’ll tell some stories from Africa soon, but for the moment am struck with the thought that as I age, 1) my social world keeps expanding geographically, 2) my career becomes more engaging, and 3) time seems to move faster. Is that universal? And what, if anything, am I meant to do about it?

whatcha whatcha whatcha want whatcha want

I want a lot of things. Mostly intangibles. I want to feel free, I want to see the world, I want to be a good camper and leave the place a little better than I found it. I want to develop my ability to listen well, and to empathize while maintaining my sense of perspective.

I realized recently that I began my life as a singlemindedly goal-oriented person, but have been living for the past few years as if I’m not that. I have no endgame. This chafes, however, because my mind continues to urge me to set goals and achieve them, and then do it again—running races being an obvious example.

I also find myself very comfortable with the not-very-functional balance of independence/dependence in my life. Or, to put it another way, I find myself deeply frightened of relying on others more or less than I currently do, because I imagine that doing that sets me up for the pendulum swing in the other direction—they leave, or I drive them away by rejecting their involvement in my life, and I find myself wanting but having no one to provide what I want. Which happens in small ways currently (as I imagine it does to most people), but of course I project that it could be MORE painful in the future.

I want love and comfort and snuggles, but only when I feel like it. And I want to be left alone, again, when I feel like it. I want the people I love to know without the slightest doubt that I cherish them and would take a bullet for them and never regret it. I think it all boils down to wanting a life free of fear. I want to feel as if I have nothing to fear—not lack of support, not sudden destitution, not evil diseases attacking people with no warning. But since fear is a feeling, can I simply choose not to feel it? I have been called fearless before, and it is flattering but untrue. I fear and I want in an endless loop, but perhaps that is all the balance I can hope to achieve.

“From this day forward, gay & lesbian Soldiers may serve in our Army with the dignity & respect they deserve,” Sec Army McHugh #dadtrepeal