People tend to get sad when they have to come home from a particularly enjoyable vacation experience, but I don’t really fall into this category. Anymore, after 4 or 5 days away from home, I’m ready to get back to both normalcy and, most of all, my dogs. Although I was absolutely ready to hop on the plane this morning and return to Louisville, I had some different thoughts about this trip and how geography plays a huge role in dictating your personal reality.
Throughout college, I was fortunate enough to be able to live in Atlanta, Houston, and Nashville. During my time in those cities, I got to experience different climates, cultures, and geographies while learning a lot about myself as an independent student/professional. Spending time away from my former (and current) home was awesome, because when I look back, I can see how that helped to shape both my mental outlook as well as my character (to some degree). Although I’m quite sure that it affects everyone differently, for me, a change in geographic location represents growth and change – two things that I really learned to embrace.
Living in new, exciting places always helped me maintain feelings of progress and, oddly enough, comfort. It was one of those things that I never quite realized at the time, but as soon as I put myself in a stagnant environment (read: moved back to Louisville), things slowly began to change for the negative.
I distinctly remember being a senior in college and enjoying the fact that I had become a much calmer, more level-headed guy than I had been in years past. It was kind of nice to be able to look at myself and my actions and to know that I had improved in so many ways. Fast forward a couple of years, and I think a lot of that nearly came undone. I was quick to anger like I was when I was 18, and I had basically become a far less tolerant person. If you ask me, I think one of the main reasons for this is because I had stopped the fast-paced, intellectually-stimulating growth trend that I had been living on for over four years. Subconsciously, I think my mind rejected the idea of “going some place I had already been before.”
I know it probably sounds silly, but I’ve always hated the idea of repeating myself. Perhaps living in an environment that I effectively “grew out of” when I was 18 is basically equivalent to repeating myself…
Whether the above statement is true or false really doesn’t matter at this point, though, because after my trip to Austin, I’ve gotten on this wave of thinking where I just feel this undeniable urge to move on. Where I’ll go is totally up in the air, and when I’ll do it is anybody’s guess.
Suffice it to say that I’ve just got a lot of things that I could stand to put behind me, and the perfect remedy for just about all of them is simply to change my environment. There’s a freedom and liberation that you feel when you set out on your own personal adventure into uncharted territory, and unless you’ve felt it, then it probably won’t quite hit home with you the way it has with me. That said, I think it’s high time I set off on my next adventure.