Adventures On the Road

Sometimes it takes a question as simple as ‘what’s new with you?’ to make you jump up and realize that things need to change.  Or sometimes to make you realize that things have changed.

Someone asked me that simple question a couple weeks ago, ‘what’s new with you?’ and I realized that for the first time in a long time, I had nothing to report.  After four years of a life that was constantly in motion, where I was in a constant stage of waiting for the next leg of the trip, with no need to make plans because something would always come up, and inevitably, any plans that I did make would have to be cancelled, the fact that I had nothing exciting to report, nor did I have any immediate plans, kind of threw me.

At first I rushed into immediate plans.  I headed to the city to get lost in the hustle and bustle of downtown Seattle, trying to wake myself up from the West Seattle haze I had found myself in.  Don’t get me wrong, I love West Seattle, but not a ton of excitement minus the orca whale sightings.  I scoured the event listings and bought tickets for the Seattle Symphony, the holiday show at the 5^th Avenue Theater, and found myself at the Showbox at the Market on a Monday night seeing ‘Walk Off the Earth’ live (who would have thought that youtube video we watched a year ago would come back around like this?). 

Showbox at the Market (Seattle, WA)

Walk Off the Earth “Somebody I Used to Know”

Summer Jammin’

After that initial panic that I was wasting away my days, I realized that not being on the road and traveling constantly was actually a good thing.   It’s true that in the past few years I never had to make any plans for adventure because there was no way I could avoid a last minute trip to NYC, a weekend in Chicago, an opportunity to see Martha’s Vineyard, have access to concerts, or have the opportunity to sing ‘on the road again’ again and again as we drove straight across the country for the 5^th time that year.  But for the past few years I never made plans.  It seemed like I could never make a dr’s appointment, much less attend a neighbour’s holiday party or BBQ.  I sounded like a recording stuck on repeat, ‘who knows where I’ll be.  I’ll let you know, but probably won’t be able to make it’.  And it’s a little hard to make new friends when you can never commit to spending time with them.

It hit me suddenly that now I have the freedom to MAKE PLANS.  To commit to a schedule.  What??  The value of having the freedom to commit to a schedule?  Who would have thought that that was important?  Well, I have now thrown myself into ‘planning’ wholeheartedly.  A girl’s night, a weekly grocery shopping trip, a holiday ornament exchange, hosting a Christmas Cocktail Party, attending a friend’s holiday party – all things that I can say have happened in the last week, or will be happening in the week to come.

So, what at first seemed like a horrible realization that the excitement in my life was dependent on the twists and turns of work (which means I’m actually a very boring person), has now turned into the fantastic realization that I’m in control of my own adventures (and that I’m not actually a boring person by nature), and part of that adventure is this new opportunity to put down some roots!