Parking Lots, Couches, and Defining Our Lives

January 1, 2014,
I found myself standing with my belongings in a Waffle House parking lot. Dropped off by a friend, I was on my 2nd borrowed ride that morning, waiting for another ride, to get to where I was staying. Only to get up in the morning, to get a ride to the airport, to take a flight, to get a hotel, to get on a plane, to get back to El Paso, to stay with friends. I'm beginning to think that the way I started this year is going to be pretty symbolic of how it's going to go.

And with that comes a range of emotions. First, there is gratefulness, that I am surrounded by amazing friends and family that have made this way of life possible for me. Second, there is selfishness, that leaves me questioning if I can live this way. I find myself longing for my independence; to not be reliant on anyone to get where I am going by figuring out where they are going first; to sleep in a bed, in a bedroom and to be able to shut the door. To fly "home" after the holidays to MY house and MY routine. But my routine is brand new, just like this year and as this day sets in, I'm realizing more and more that any sense of normalcy has completely blown out the window.

I am the biggest proponent I know of the idea that, "it is the journey that brings us happiness, not the destination." Yet caught in the emotion of feeling in-between a million things and not actually anywhere, I almost missed the fact that this is the adventure I've been waiting my whole life for.

There is a part of each of us that feels like, until we can clearly define our lives; "where we live," "what we do," we can't clearly define ourselves. It is not that we are lost, we just don't feel found. The reality is, we should always be seeking, always growing, always evolving. Sometimes we just feel more security in the things around us than others. Whether we have been in the same job and lived in the same house for 40 years, or are on our way to something new, we are no less "somewhere" than we were the moment before. There is no more worth or value to who you are with a job, a home, a spouse, a family... or without. The value is given and taken by ourselves, and we have to stop defining ourselves this way.

As I begin 2014, the only thing that feels like a sure bet, is that this year is going to be full of adventure and growth and the unknown. My challenge to you is the same as it is for myself. Don't wait on titles and labels to define you. You are fully you. Right now. You're not lost. Stop and look around. You may just be where you've always wanted to be. Don't miss it.
Here's to 2014!!