A-kimmie's Heel

wan·der·lust
Pronunciation: 'wän-d&r-"l&st
Function: noun
: strong longing for or impulse toward wandering

As I walked into my office building today, I was overcome with ennui. I felt it as soon as I opened the door.

Ennui.

I even mentioned it to Julia. (Her response was "what are you talking about?!")

All day long, my personal soundtrack ran through my mind. I could hear my mother saying:

-"No matter how far you've gone down the wrong road, turn back."

I can hear myself telling a co-worker:
- "You haven't even given this place a chance. How do you know it's time to go?"

My friend Philip is yelling:
-"You need to have a job with no responsibility for awhile. Take the money, figure out what you really want to do, and then RUN! Literally. "

Well, I have said job. There are responsibilities (that I do not like), but the salary is high enough for me to do the job just for the money. There are relationships and events at work that make me uncomfortable. The alarm in my head started out small and quiet, now I cannot hear anything else. I'm trying to suck it up, while I desperately come up with a game plan. My problem is, all of this wandering has taught me a bit about what I should not be doing, but I still do not know what I should do instead.

Since I have no one to answer to (no kids, no spouse, no boyfriend) it is quite simple for me to pick up and leave town. But why? I have other goals: I would like to be in a relationship, I would like to have children one day; I would like to have a hobby as a hobby, not a hobby as a career. For the past 2 years, I have been trying to figure out how to make "settle down" happen without much success. I tried staying past my comfort zone, and that turned out to be a disaster. Maybe this is still my time to wander, even if I am getting old.

David Brooks says that I am in the odyssey life phase. Somehow, I am chasing something that doesn't exist. What is that something? What am I chasing that I cannot achieve? If I can figure that out, I bet I will settle down.