Can you stand another travel-themed extended metaphor? Not that it matters, really, because I'm going to share one anyway. I was talking with a friend of mine earlier about some frustrations we're both having with our positions in life. We're both caught in the limbo-land of not being where we really want to be, but also accepting that life hands you what it hands you. This is an interesting blend of living moment by moment with a peripheral view of the future...that age-old head vs. heart problem. I have a really great opportunity right now that is not really in line with what I want to do with my life. As I shared this, my friend asked, "I thought you wanted to write full-time." I do. There's no doubt about that. I want to wake each morning completely aware of the wonders of life around me, to feel gratitude for my small part in the grand scheme of the universe, and share these insights with the world. That's my dream. His response to that was, "Wel...

Maybe I've been spending too much time with early teenagers lately, but I've had a lot of thoughts rumbling through my head lately that sound way too much like my journal from 1990. When you're in the middle of that teenage angst, there's always any number of adults around telling you that it will all make sense one day. That eventually you will be at peace with yourself. That "this, too, will pass". And they do. I see now from my vantage point of 31 (Wow...31? Really?) that perspective comes only with experience. I wrote in my journal the other day that sometimes I want to "crawl into my 12 year old skin". It's not that I really want to live through those days again. It's just that I miss the simplicity of knowing my daily goal was to learn how to solve equations and the gross domestic product of Brazil, to write some notes to friends, to watch my favorite t.v. shows, and go to sleep knowing that my life was just one great big bundle of poss...