“The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.” Dorothy Parker

Sometimes I watch Katie Couric on TV and wonder if I should have majored in journalism instead of English and anthropology. Or I read in the paper that Denver was hit with a snowstorm and imagine what my life would be like if my degree was followed by ski-bumhood. We go to a movie set in New England, and I start making mental plans to retire on Martha’s Vineyard. After all, we spent six days there three years ago, I’m sure we know enough about island living and northeast property taxes. I go to dinner with friends headed for China, and my heart quickens with hope that Lord-willing we’ll soon be overseas. Later that day I enjoy a barbeque with friends who’ve settled in their 2,200-square-foot home, and secretly pine for a more predictable life where Kabob builds us a home with handmade cabinetry, and the roots grow deep and stalwart. I’d like both a high-rise loft with concrete floors and a country cottage with a tomato garden. One day I’d love to pursue that master’s degree or finish taking seminary classes, but I’d also like to be confident enough not to need a piece of paper dictate what I know. I want to be the comedian and the poet. Living by the seat of my pants would be fun, but so would being the dependable one, the one you can knock on their door and know they’ll be home to whip you up some coffee. I want to live on a tropical coastline, but where it snows every December and we can ski right into the front door. It would be fun to be a hostage negotiator for one day, and the next day be a bus driver.

I know this has nothing to do with not being deeply, truly satisfied, or that I had a messed-up childhood or something. I think it’s more to do with that springboarded heart inside me, where it quickens with the thought of change. I know if I were to settle in a treehouse in Africa, I’d soon long for the suburbian sidewalks with Little League practice each Tuesday. So much do I thrive on change that the newness of not changing thrills me.

posted: 05 June 10
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